Senkei
by XxZuiliu
Summary: It's a miracle in itself that life extends beyond death. But in reality, reincarnation in the time of the warring clans is a curse, not a blessing. Self-Insert OC
1. I

There are some things that you learn to question, and other things that you learn to leave alone.

Let's start with something basic. How do trees grow? It may sound like a rather mundane question to you, but can you tell me how the process of photosynthesis works and what its products are used for? What is cellular respiration? How is it affected by the presence of (or lack of) oxygen? What is glycolysis? What are the details of the Calvin cycle? What are the possible functions of ATP?

Those are questions that bear in-depth researching, and thorough examining, for discovering the answers to. Or perhaps you're not interested in biology at all, perhaps your preferences lie within the realm of physics. Astronomy. Mathematics. Fine Arts.

Then go ahead, go ahead and ask your questions, ask all the questions you want to your heart's content. Humans all possess this drive, this impulse, this _thirst_ to find out _why_ and _how _something occurs or operates the way it does.

Humans have made many advancements in their fervent hunt for knowledge. However, the knowledge of humans is far from complete.

But even then, there are things that you just don't go around finding concrete answers to.

_What is the purpose of life?_

_Why do people live?_

_Why do people die?_

_..._

_What happens after death?_

I haven't formulated any sound responses for the first three, and knowing my personality, I probably never will. Although, I believe that it's well within my rights now to address that last question: _What happens after death?_

Rebirth.

… Or maybe that's not quite the right way to be phrasing it. Reincarnation, perhaps? Or do the two words essentially represent the same meaning by definition?

At any rate, it's the only explanation I have for surviving a car crash that broke my spine in half... waking up to find myself bawling my eyes out in the body of an infant.

I'm rather hesitant to dredge up those terrifying moments of nothing but _pain_ and _darkness_ that engulfed me in the scant few moments after my body had been snapped at an impossible angle. I don't want to recall any of the _excruciating_ torture that I experienced in that vast, chaotic space of _nothingness_, where my mind was ripped to pieces and patched together again, shredded apart and melded together, and somehow still coming out whole.

I don't believe in miracles. I was never a religious person to begin with. I'd never joined any of those Bible study sessions that my friends were so fond of, never set aside offerings to appease questionable deities, never went to worship every Sunday. It's not that I look down on and scorn religions or anything, it's just that I'm too _practical _about everything, to immerse myself into the path of a dedicated faith.

I'm a thinker, not a believer.

Where questions can be answered through logic and evidence, why turn to the unfounded words of mouth instead?

I accept that there are questions beyond the capabilities of a human to answer. But I also accept that some mysterious will remain just that -mystery.

Henceforth, the prospect of reincarnation will be relegated under that category, and left alone.

Going from 21st Century America to feudal era Japan was quite the startling change to account for and adjust to, and, honestly speaking, there are still days when I feel as if I should be waking up any moment now from this _nightmare_ (pity that those days are starting to grow few and far between).

I call this world a nightmare because it's the only word that fittingly describes this world of hellish anarchy.

The little knowledge I retained regarding warfare from my former world were gathered from fraying textbooks that featured naught but tiny snippets of wartime conditions. Attention had always been focused on the outcomes and repercussions resulting from said conflict. We had only been taught the influences and impacts that war left behind in its destructive wake, how it helped shape the world into what it was today.

Those wars had always included heavy artillery weapons and bombs, poisonous gas and lightweight combat planes. People here used shurikens and katanas, incorporated into a deadly dance of supernatural powers and inhuman strength.

… I most certainly _wish _that I'm only hallucinating here, but illusions don't stretch on for years... nor do they haunt your mind each night in bloody nightmares. For how else can these abilities be described as?

A few motions of the fingers, and an abyss suddenly splits the earth, swallowing those who were unfortunate enough to be lingering at its very edge. A slight crouch, and suddenly a person was _meters _away from their previous position, lunging towards their startled prey with a kunai aimed at the throat.

Funnily enough, I've actually seen these things before, prior to my death... but even the very notion of it is preposterous, is it not?

Somehow being reincarnated into the _Naruto _world after death, I mean.

Granted, it was strange, since everything was so _different _from what it should be. Although ninjas existed here and possessed abilities similar to the ones that had been described in the Naruto manga, there were _way_ too many key differences for the two worlds to be the one and same. Everything in this world drastically diverged from the story I that I only vaguely recalled from my hazy memories.

For starters, there was no hidden ninja village called "Konohagakure."

In fact, there existed no ninja villages at all.

Everything was viciously and wretchedly brutal. Full-scale slaughters and battles amongst various scattered clans of ninjas occurred every day, everywhere, and were liable to begin anytime. The peasants and other common folk, people who weren't ninjas by profession, could only cower together in tiny settlements together, lingering on the edges of the war torn wastelands.

According to the stories that the elders in the village told, these barren lands used to be lush farming fields a long time ago. Farm fields that had been razed to the ground by decades of constant warfare.

There was nothing here that resembled the proud ninja villages and brave heroes who always showed up to save the day. People in the village died all the time, the main causes usually a mixture of disease and starvation. Feeding ourselves was a monumental task in and of itself, for it was near impossible to get a constant supply of food. Many people had long since resorted to growing crops by themselves, but the scrawny vegetables were usually always stolen before they even ripened.

(Whether the deed was committed by a fellow neighbor or a passerby ninja, though, was up to anyone's guess.)

I suppose in that respect, the family I'd been born into was a little better off than the rest. My grandfather worked exclusively with seal-making, the art of Fuuinjutsu.

You'd think that this meant he was a Seal Master or some similarly accomplished position, but those assumptions couldn't be farther off the mark.

Grandfather only knew how to draw two particular seals from copying the sealing arrays that his father's father's mother's uncle's cousin's friend had somehow managed to get his hands on. There was no fancy work involved in making seals, and the only requirement it had was that all the designs and flowing characters had to be _exact_. If even one tiny little mistake was made, a small little stroke written out of place, the seal was a dud.

Well, that, or it yielded some pretty disastrous results. I only knew that latter piece of information from my grandfather.

(But I suppose that those results must've been pre-tty disastrous if no ninja ever came knocking on our door for vengeance because of an exploding tag gone wrong.)

Grandfather's father (great-grandfather) only taught him how to make storage seals and explosive seals, which were usually used exclusively by ninjas (who not only had an actual need for them, but also happened to have the funds to afford them from the missions offered to them by Daimyos and such). Although ninjas rarely came through the village, the odd stragglers happened across us often enough that they would usually drop in and purchase a few seals from the old man living in town. After all, old age usually equated to more experience and knowledge, which meant that his seals would be of high quality.

In truth, grandfather's seals weren't really reliable at all. In fact, more than half of the time the seals he made turned out to be duds, all because of some miniscule mistake that was made in the writing process.

(I only knew this because grandfather liked to use his storage seals to hide food from our starving neighbors. They usually never worked.)

Grandfather never gave up in writing his seals, though. As soon as I turned three years old, old enough to hold a pencil-like peel of wood with my clumsy fingers, my lessons in the family business began.

… It wasn't all that bad, really, all things considered.

In a way, though, we were still the same as everyone else in the village. When clouds of acrid smoke billowed over town and tremors began vibrating in the ground, rattling the frames of the fragile shacks we lived in, we'd race out of our homes with all the other villagers to wait out the ninja battle that had gotten too close to the village. The surrounding landscape around the village changed as constantly as the different blood of the ninjas painting it, save for the tall mountains that we always fled to in times of danger. Our village was located at the foot of the mountain, so it was only a matter of being able to scale the rocks quickly enough -or, as in the case of the elderly, navigate their way through the hidden path swift enough.

We managed.

Somehow.

We'd always be able to stick together with the other villagers in the mad rush to escape. There were many horror stories of families who'd escaped too late, and had been killed in the violent crossfire of the ongoing ninja battle. Bleeding to death by stray throwing knives were painful, but apparently not as painful as being burned alive by a _Katon_ jutsu. There were rumors of people who'd been captured by shinobi clans, too, villagers who were taken away to be used as slaves.

These tales succeeded in cowing even the rowdiest of defiant children into meek obedience.

My mother was a very demure and quiet woman who never talked much, but she was always the one carrying me in these impromptu exoduses. She never strayed far from grandfather's side.

As a child with the awareness and mentality of an adult, these mass village fleeings were nothing short of _terrifying_. Even when I was just a newborn infant, helpless to do anything but squirm and cry, I always fell dead silent whenever the thunderous explosions split the air and my mother urgently gathered me into her arms.

Chakra was something that had never existed in my former world. In stark contrast, chakra existed in _everything_ here. Even the very _air_ itself was completely _saturated_ with chakra. I can't count the number of times I thought that I'd drown on dry land from the thrumming energy alone, from the constant _pressure _that weighed down on me no matter where I went. Growing used to the presence of chakra was one of the most difficult experiences I had aside from adjusting to living in war and learning Japanese.

Feeling that same energy twisting its way through my body was nothing short of torture.

Perhaps that was why I was... _sensitive_ to chakra, I guess you could say. I was the child who'd always curl up shivering in the corner by herself, trembling from the waves of sheer _power _that clashed together with each other over and over again... while other children plotted ways to escape the temporary haven that served as a flimsy protection from the conflict outside.

In comparison to the energetic and excitable children of other families who dreamed of becoming heroes and stopping the war, I must've been an exceptionally easy child to raise for my mother and grandfather. Once my mind grasped the fact that there was a full out _war _going on, I quickly lapsed into the role of an obedient little girl. I didn't sneak out to play Ninja with the other children. I didn't slink out of the village, hoping to catch a glimpse of real shinobi. I just stayed in our ragged little shack and used a pointed stick that had been dipped in a slimy mixture of mud and ashes to copy the graceful script of my grandfather's seals day after day after day.

It was by no means an easy task to copy his seal work, as simple as it sounded. A child's motor skills were a far cry from the fine control possessed by an adult.

It wasn't uncommon for my grandfather to grow frustrated from my choppy, uneven script. Then, backside sore and smarting with pain, I'd be sent stumbling out the shack to water our tiny vegetable garden as a punishment. Since the tiny river nearby was located on the outskirts of the village, hauling water buckets back and forth quickly became a real pain in the ass. A pain that I was forced to relive several times a day.

The only comfort I gleaned from this was that our plants grew better than those of other families, from the sheer number of extra times I that drowned them on a daily basis... even if most of them were always stolen before we managed to harvest any.

Hunger was always a constant companion here, something that you could never truly appease, and never went away. It wasn't uncommon for newborn children to die of starvation in the village -and I could only thank my lucky stars that I had somehow survived the first trial of this world.

Although, whether I could continue to pass that same trial was beginning to become a problem these days.

"Better. Again."

Scraping more of the gooey ash-mud mixture onto my thin little stick, I silently reached for another piece of bark under the stern gaze of my grandfather.

Drawing the same mess gibberish nonsense over and over, day after day, tended to get really mind-numbing and _boring_, especially since I understood none of what I was writing. They weren't even Japanese words, for crying out loud! But it wasn't like I was in any position to complain about it, though -these fake seals were our family's only source of income.

At times like these, I couldn't help but find myself wondering about my biological father in this world. In feudal times, it was usually the male in the family who worked to provide for everyone else. Was he dead, then? I'd never heard my mother or grandfather mention anything about him at all... and the only men who showed up at our run-down shack were ninjas who were here to buy seals.

Had he been a casualty of one of the ninja battles?

"Pay attention to what you're doing, Sen." Grandfather's sharp voice sliced through my thoughts, causing me to give a small start of surprise. The stick in my hand slipped, and a small grimace appeared on my face when I saw the jagged black line that was running down the center. "Seals must contain not only ink, but the mind and heart as well."

Staring at yet another ruined storage seal in my hands, I resisted the urge to sigh. It probably would've looked disconcerting on the face of a little five year old girl, anyways.

"Yes, grandpa."

My mother glanced up briefly from her corner in the dark shack at our short interlude before she turned back to her own seal work. The soft yellow candlelight we were working by was dimming with every passing second, and I let out a small yawn. Every day was the same -no matter how long into the night we worked, grandfather didn't allow anyone to go to sleep until the candle burned out.

Maybe in this world I'll have a reasonable excuse for being an insomniac.

I paused momentarily as I readied my writing stick again, brown eyes flickering quickly over the stuffy room of the shack.

An old man with white hair, who leaned against the wall as his hands moved deftly and swiftly from years of repetition and practice in the same motions. A gaunt young woman with a hollow face, neatly copying those exact same swirling motions with the twig that was delicately pinched between her fingers. And then there was me, a tiny pipsqueak of a girl, who struggled to keep up with them to the best of her ability with her own little splinter of wood.

How strange a sight we must've made, sitting there in silence and working together.

My mind slowly began wandering again as the silence stretched on. Being reborn into a fictional world (apparently, it wasn't a world that was as fictional as it seemed) was something that I vaguely recalled hearing about prior to my death. People wrote stories of these incidents happening, where a heroine would often encounter the main cast and proceed to help them in their endeavors, becoming a hero in her own right and eventually saving the day.

So where did that leave me, then? This was the Naruto world, no doubt about that, but there was no... Naruto. I mean, there were no Naruto characters at all, never mind the fact that there weren't any ninja villages in the first place. Then, perhaps this was some kind of alternate dimension of the Naruto world, one where ninja villages didn't exist? That would definitely explain this perpetual war that was going on...

My hands trembled violently, the air suddenly exiting my lungs in one fell swoop, as a familiar pressure tickled the foreign energy that now flowed through my body in an uncomfortable, disturbing fashion.

It was _chakra._

Which meant there were _ninjas._

Who always brought _danger._

"Sen?" Concern bled freely from my mother's hazel eyes, and she automatically set down the splinter of wood in her hands, standing up and-

"RUN! RUN! THE SHINOBI ARE COMING! RUN!"

Her eyes widened, while my grandfather's eyes narrowed.

A young teen was racing through the muddy road barefooted, uncaring of the trail of red his heavy footprints left behind. He was one of the few people who had been sent outside the village today, one of the villagers who kept a constant lookout for shinobi battles that wandered a little too close for comfort...

My mother's lips thinned and my grandfather scowled. I blinked, and everything dove into a blur of motion.

Toss the seals together in a dry bundle, half-finished or not. Grab a small skin-flask full of water that was filled the previous day. Snatch the tattered cloth that we huddled together under every night.

My mother then hauled me up into her arms, and next thing I knew, the frigid air of the chilly night was biting deeply into my skin as she scuttled down the street right next to Grandfather. There were panicked screams and shouts echoing everywhere as people were roughly woken up in the dead of the night, and the entire village was stirred into a frenzy of absolute terror. People were sprinting on the muddy road, making a break for the rocky mountainside before the _ninjas_ came.

"HURRY! _RUN!_"

I shivered.

_This_ was the life of a peasant in a world of ninjas. A world of _shinobi_. Constantly teetering on the brink of starvation, forever fearful of what the next sunrise would bring, always paranoid and on edge, and prepared to flee at the drop of a hat. Mere villagers can't even _hope_ to oppose against the might of a shinobi, much less survive standing in the direct crossfire of a shinobi massacre...

Death hovered over our heads every single day. It was a mere ticking of the clock, one second after another, before it would come down like a guillotine, and stain the next dawn a bloody red with all the other blood that had been spilled.

Luck.

Luck, and hope.

That was all this boiled down to. If you separated from the other villagers and were unlucky enough to be discovered by the shinobi, you were _dead_. Dead, dead, _dead_. It was an indisputable, irrevocable _fact_. Ninjas raped the women and enslaved the men, slaughtered the children and plundered the village. No one, _no one -_apart from other shinobi- could encounter shinobi in the midst of battle and survive to tell the tale.

…

…

…

Sometimes, I can't help but question why I'm even still alive.

* * *

.

...

.

Author's Notes:

I've been reading a lot of Naruto SI fics lately, and it's occurred to me that there doesn't seem to be any SI fics with the OC being inserted into the time period before the ninja villages were formed. Maybe it's because it's _way_ too far off from the Naruto timeline everyone is acquainted with...? :/ I dunno, the concept seemed like rather interesting idea to play around with. xD

This chapter is a 'test run' of sorts to test and see what other people think about this idea. ^^ Oh, and please remember to point out grammar mistakes and other errors you find here!

-XxZuiliu


	2. II

_What defines the term "alive?"_

_Is it simply existing and continuing to function? Continuing to eat, breathe, and sleep, like how many organisms are wont to do? Or is it not just the mere act of _operating_, but also that _will_ to rise and see the daybreak of each new dawn? Or perhaps not merely _seeing_ the next dawn, but eagerly anticipating its arrival as well? _

_People can live in all kinds of different ways, with all sorts of different mindsets, and can choose to either do something exciting each day, or go through the same, familiar clockwork motions that they take so much comfort in. Many humans are creatures of habit, after all. But are they truly _alive_ if they don't _feel _anything for what they do? If they don't feel those _vivid_ emotions that bring in the _colors_ and tangible _flavors_ of life?_

_… _

_No laughter. No smiles. In this world, paranoia and fear overrule _everything_. _

_Is this really what we consider being alive? _

* * *

I was a biologist in my past life. Not that it matters very much anymore, of course. In fact, nothing really seems to matter anymore.

Nothing other than_ staying alive_, at least.

It all sounds so simple. But theories always sound simple on paper, and applying them to reality is an entirely different concept altogether.

If only...

I twitched as a large splinter of wood forced its way into my palm when I adjusted my grip on the handle of the rotting bucket. Setting it down to pull the wooden shard out from my hand, I frowned silently as a small bead of blood began to well up. Not wanting to take any chances, I squeezed the puncture wound so more blood would flow out than was strictly necessary -in case the wood happened to be contaminated with anything, it wouldn't be able to make its way into my bloodstream.

It would be really pathetic if I died because of some bacteria on a piece of wood.

Although, fortune seemed to favor our village in at least one aspect -instead of a village well, we had a river as our water source. That meant we had access to freshwater, which lessened the odds of our water being contaminated -less of a chance for dying of diarrhea, you could say.

H2O. Tetrahedral. Bent molecule. Bond angle: 109.5°. Hybridization: sp3.

… The knowledge that had once been so useful in my former life was completely and utterly _useless_ now. What did that information matter here? _Knowledge_ didn't stop the ninjas from fighting and getting common peasants killed in the crossfire. _Knowledge_ didn't help food grow, didn't stop people from starving. What good did simple _knowledge_ do in a ruthless world like this? A world where the strong reigned while the weak were helplessly left to die?

(… There's a fine line between being a realist and being a pessimist. I prefer to think of myself as the former, not the latter.)

I sighed.

Scooping out some water from the wooden bucket with my other hand, I quickly splashed it over the open cut. There were a few ribbons of red that broke away from my palm within the water before it messily splattered onto the ground. Ignoring the slight tingling sensation the water left behind and raising my injured hand to eye level, I ran a critical eye over it again.

… At least it wasn't bleeding as much as it did the last time something like this happened, even if the cut happened to be a little longer this time...

"What's wrong, Sen?"

My head jolted upwards as I glanced over my shoulder upon hearing the incessant chatter of my companion come to a grinding halt as she called my name. The little girl was a fellow village child who'd also been sent to fetch water from the river, coincidentally around the same time my grandfather kicked me out of the shack today for the same purpose. Sending children to the nearby river with rotting buckets seemed to be a rather popular punishment in this village, for some strange, obscure reason...

"Nothing."

The raven-headed girl blinked at my flat response, "Are you sure?"

I nodded mutely before picking up my water bucket again -using my other hand, the one that wasn't bleeding right now. Hopefully, the bleeding would stop soon. I _really_ didn't fancy writing with my left hand. To my grandfather, someone who was ambidextrous, one could write as long as they were capable of picking up a stick in their hand. True, I was somewhat passable at left-handed writing due to the other times my dominant hand had been injured, but it was still a lot less accurate than my right hand -which usually meant even _more_ punishment for making a total mess out of the seal work.

… Bleck. I don't even want to _think_ about that right now.

The girl standing next to me shrugged at my prolonged silence, and began trudging along the dirt path back to the village again, "... You're kinda weird, y'know?"

I didn't respond to that, only following along silently. After all, what could I say?

_Oh, sorry 'bout being "weird." It might have something to do with the fact that I was, I dunno, reincarnated into a dangerous fictional world that's somehow real, and might die at any moment given that the entire country is in anarchy with superhuman ninjas running around everywhere?_

… I had a feeling that things wouldn't go over too well if I said something along those lines, so I just kept my mouth shut as I plodded along after Kanna.

The river we accessed was only a short distance from the village, flowing right by the mountainside. It actually originated somewhere high up in the high, snowy cliffs of the tall mountains we lived next to, and if one ever cared to follow the stream to the foot of the mountains, they'd find a quiet waterfall gracefully arching through the air in its ageless, timeless dance.

On days when my grandfather's beatings went a little too far, I'd purposely go all the way down to this waterfall to fill the water bucket, if only to lengthen the time for him to cool down his temper. Truthfully speaking, though, I never liked to go fetch water, anyways -although the distance wasn't very far, it was still a really long way for a child to walk on their own.

But the water itself was calming, and helped the adult in me reign in her temper at being "punished" as a child for things she held no control over.

It's rather irrelevant now, I guess, but back when I was alive -alive in _my_ world- I used to be a rather good swimmer. Way back in highschool, I was even on the varsity swim team.

So maybe that's why I sometimes found the water to be _calming_, like the little old woman I really was, instead of harboring a _complete_ aberration towards it like most of the other children. For them, water never really represented anything good -it meant punishment (since they'd be sent to the river for water) and being scrubbed down by their parents in the rare bath until their skin was glistening red and raw.

My nose wrinkled a little at the reminder. It was something I had the misfortune to experience, too...

Kanna strode on ahead of me, still blabbering on about whatever happened to pop into her mind at the moment. How her big brother was being mean to her again, stealing her share of vegetables and not letting her play ninja with him. How her parents were thinking of planting more tomatoes, since their last stock had been cleared out. How her grandmother was recently-

A _shockwave_ suddenly lanced through the air, like a thunderbolt that had just been dropped out of the middle of the clear skies from _nowhere_, and my heart nearly stopped.

_Chakra_, my mind readily supplied the term that I'd grown to fear and detest, _It's chakra._

…

_Shinobi_.

They were here again.

But... _why so soon?_ This just didn't make any _sense_. It had only been a mere two days since the last time they'd came close this close to the village, so why would-?

"Sen?"

Kanna had turned around again, and I belatedly realized that I'd stopped walking again -right in the middle of the road, "What's wrong _now_, we're almost back to the village, for good-"

"Run."

The similarly raven-haired girl blinked disconcertingly at the word that had abruptly left my mouth.

"Huh?"

"... Run," I repeated myself, barely aware of the fact that my body was beginning to tremble -the large chakra was so _close_ right now, everyone must've already evacuated, but they _weren't,_ there were still so many pulses of chakra blinking around in the village and this was completely crazy because the ninjas were going to be here any minute and we were all supposed to be in the middle of evacuating and hiding and this _peace_ in the village was wrong because the village was going to be in chaos at any moment-

Another _roar_ of chakra _howled_ through the air, and my breath caught in my throat.

Then I saw it.

_I saw it._

I saw the horrifying sight of the veritable sea of flames setting the sky ablaze and raining down _everywhere_. My heart pounding in my ears, I could still make out those screams and shouts that seemed to vaguely float over from the direction of the village -there were a lot of stragglers this time, because _no one had run away ahead of time_- and the heat from those unearthly flames were starting scorching my skin, and I could _feel-_

My throat tightened, and suddenly even _swallowing_ became such a daunting task.

_No._

_Focus_.

I took in a shaky breath, attempting to steady myself. This wasn't the time to be feeling lightheaded and lose myself in panic along with everyone else.

_Focus._

Kanna was nowhere in sight now. Smart little girl probably ran for it the moment she saw the flames eating through the sky. I should probably head for the mountains, too, although... I wonder how my mother and grandfather are faring. Even now, I'm still not quite sure how to categorize my feelings towards them, but they've been taking care of me, they're my blood relations in this world, and...

No. They were usually one of the first to escape the village whenever there was danger. Even if most of the villagers were still in the village itself, _some_ people had to have escaped already, right? They were safe. I had to believe in that fact. I had to believe that they were probably already safely tucked away in one of the many caverns of the mountains at this moment.

I could only worry about myself right now.

Spinning on my heel, I dropped the water bucket on the ground and began running. There was a loud clatter and splash as water spilled over the roadway, but I didn't look back, not even once.

I couldn't go to the cliffside area where the villagers usually went. I was still a child in body, after all, and there was no way I'd be able to climb up the mountains on my own. Navigating a path upwards by foot would be much too dangerous for me to even _attempt_, lest I held a death wish to slip off a rock and fall to my imminent demise. No, I stood a better chance if I could get to the river and hide there -with all the fire that was being thrown around, the water would help provide some semblance of safety and protection against _them_.

_Them_.

The ninjas. _Shinobi_.

…

This was bad. This was _really bad._ Of all the times to be caught alone, it had to be _now? _There was safety in numbers...

I shook my head roughly, coughing from the fire-smoke, and decided to just focus on running, ignoring the way my molten limbs were begging me to drop down and _stay down_... and everything became a blur after that.

There was smoke. Lots and lots of thick, acrid smoke that burned my lungs and stung my eyes. Small specks of red-hot embers flying all over the place due to the strong winds, doubtlessly the courtesy of wind jutsus, left tiny pinpricks of pain on my body. The intense waves of boiling heat were just so _overwhelming_, and the thunderous gales of chakra spiking and exploding everywhere were making my head spin. Those metallic clangs of kunai against shuriken only _grew_ in their frenzied crescendo, never ceasing, _never stopping_...

My ears made out the sizzling hisses and crackles of wild, untamed flames again -_close, close, WAY too close to me_- and my feet stumbled, almost tripping. My throat convulsed erratically as I choked on the thick smoke that was _everywhere_, no matter where I turned and where I tried to run. Where was I now? The fire was steadily getting closer, I had to run, run, run... but to where? Where could I... the river. Yes, the river. I needed to get to the river. But where was the river again...?

_The number one cause of death related to fires isn't actually death by burning, contrary to popular belief. That dubious honor belongs to smoke inhalation. __Smoke inhalation can damage the body via simple asphyxiation, the lack of oxygen caused by combustion (the very act of burning itself). Chemical irritation must be taken into consideration as well, since substances within the smoke are harmful to the respiratory tract, such as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen chloride, chemicals capable of causing swelling and airway collapse. Then there's chemical asphyxiation, where compounds produced in the fire interfere with the body's use of oxygen at the cellular level -a prime example of which is the ever so popular carbon monoxide._

_Symptoms of smoke inhalation often will include coughing, vomiting, and nausea (acute mental status changes, which may involve confusion and/or fainting in addition to drowsiness). Rapid or hoarse breathing are also some other signs of smoke inhalation. If smoke inhalation is not treated quickly, it has the potential to continue rapidly deteriorating the victim's health, and may result in death._

…

Water. Cool, blessed, _water_.

I was feeling unusually dizzy right now, almost like my head was in the clouds of ash flying above me, but even then, I couldn't stop that giddy euphoria of pure _relief_ from coursing through my veins when I tripped and somehow found myself falling face-down in _water_. The sweet, sweet water of the river, to be exact. The currents of the river were never very strong, and the riverbed itself wasn't too deep, either, so I didn't have to worry about drowning -and really, death by drowning when there was a fire raging on?

I giggled.

Then coughed harshly, choking on the water that had made its way into my blistering lungs.

…

I couldn't remember too much after that, honestly speaking. I think I eventually dragged myself out of the river -a miraculous feat, all things considered at the time- but I'm not too sure about what happened afterwards. Did I immediately pass out? Or did I manage to stumble just a _little_ farther and at least _attempt_ to hide myself before losing consciousness?

… I really don't remember anymore.

All I remembered was that sweet, blissful darkness that gently coaxed me into oblivion.

...

In hindsight, I bitterly wished that I could've stayed in that comforting darkness forever.

* * *

_Indoctrination: noun. The act of indoctrinating. _

_Indoctrinate: verb. __To instruct in a doctrine, particularly in regards to imbuing with a specific partisan. _

_Doctrine: noun. __A particular principle, position, or policy that's taught or advocated, as of a religion or government._

Have you ever heard of indoctrination? It's something that works very well on young minds that have yet to fully develop or form their own individualistic opinions on various matters. In the years prior to WWII, many countries had adopted the ingenious use of indoctrination, mixed in with a dash of propaganda, under the iron rule of dictators to secure the loyalty of the people -and in particular, the upcoming generation.

In some cases, ninja clans may deliberately capture children to groom and brainwash into their own little soldiers to use, soldiers that would never dare to raise a hand against them. Soldiers that were more commonly known as _cannon fodder_.

...

Perhaps I should backtrack a little before this makes absolutely no sense at all.

… The village had been burned down to ashes by the wide-scale fire rain jutsu of the shinobi fighting each other that day. I don't know how many people survived, and I don't even want to _think_ about how many people that died.

The "sentries" the village had posted that day were killed before they could make it back to the village, so everyone had been caught completely unawares when fire started raining down from the sky. In their panic, many of those who'd managed to get out of the village went the wrong direction instead, confused and addled by all the smoke -running straight into the midst of the slaughter instead of the safety offered by the mountains.

It didn't take long for the shinobi fighting to realize that there was a village hidden nearby. With that little realization, everything had swiftly degenerated from the usual bloodthirsty battle into bloodthirsty chaos. The ninjas had been torn between fighting their enemies and taking advantage of this opportunity to pillage a village, while the villagers themselves desperately tried to escape by any means possible in their pandemonium... only to run headlong into the path of a kunai cutting through the air.

Houses were burned, people were killed, and many, _many_ villagers were either slaughtered as well... or captured.

All in a day's work for a shinobi.

When I woke up again, I was in a _cage_ like an animal, crammed inside along with a dozen or so other children. There were a myriad of bruises along my body -whether they were from the kicking and struggling that was going on or from my panicked run earlier, I had no idea. I only knew _fear_, which was the first thing that had registered in my mind the minute I finally comprehended what my eyes were seeing, and soon I was screaming my head off along with the other children, too.

Tell me _you_ wouldn't scream if the last thing you remembered was running for your life with huge gouts of fire falling down from the sky, and you suddenly found yourself waking up to _this_.

Someone kneed me in the stomach, and my back collided roughly against someone else, while my hands desperately scrambled to find something -_anything_- to hold onto, to steady myself in this violent tumult. I found myself being reminded of lab rats in a sudden moment of clarity -or was it madness?- reminded of entire crates of lab rats that were crammed together into cages similar to the one I found myself locked in right now, packed together as closely as possible with all these other children, not-

The kneecap digging into my stomach jerked and went completely still.

_Too_ still.

"Shut up, brats. We've got a pretty good haul this time, and no one is gonna mind if I kill a couple of 'ya if it's too rowdy. Get my drift?"

_Ninjas_.

In a sort of muted horror, my eyes were completely transfixed on the crimson liquid that slowly oozed and dripped onto my left leg, the one that was crushed under the body of the boy whose knee was still _warm_, and-

"Oi. _Oi_."

No one was listening to the shinobi, everyone was screaming and shoving even harder than before, now that it dawned upon us that one of us had _died_. All we wanted in this moment was to find an escape from this _demon_, this demon who'd just _killed_ one of us like it was completely _nothing_ to him, which-

I gasped when something wet splattered against the side of my arm, and I immediately whirled around, someone's elbow slamming into my side, and-

… _Ohmygod. Thisisn'thappening._

The brown-haired little girl had gray eyes, gray eyes that were only a tad bit lighter than my own. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. What came out instead was a wave of vivid, vermillion _red_ -directly into my face.

All I could numbly think of in that split second was, _That could've been __**me**__._

"SHUT UP!"

On day one as a child captive of the Amagasa Clan, I learned that, even though I'd been somehow granted with another chance at life, death was still reluctant to loosen its hold on me.

* * *

.

...

.

Author's Notes:

I actually wanted to get this chapter out last week, but I made some last-minute plot changes, which is what delayed the update. Hopefully this won't become a common occurrence and I'll be able to update again sometime early next week...

On a happier note, thank you to everyone who reviewed! It's nice to know that there are other people out there who think that a pre-Naruto timeline SI story might be interesting, and I'll do my best to make this story live up to your expectations. This chapter might be moving things along a little quickly, though, and I'm not quite sure if I managed to make Sen convincingly sound like she's panicking/suffering from smoke inhalation -I'd really appreciate any help I can get on that section. :)

Please point out grammar and/or content mistakes!

-XxZuiliu


	3. III

In nightmares, you can only watch with a sort of detached horror in your mind and fear pounding away in your chest as everything unfolds around you. But even then, it's all _muted_ to a certain extent -your senses aren't as sharp, and even though you flail and panic, you don't truly_ feel_ anything, not even when someone slaps you on the face or stabs you with a knife. There's always this underlying sense that, though this is all really scary and creepy to the point of disturbing, you're safe because_ this isn't real_.

I really wish that I can say the same for my current situation. But that would be a lie.

"Get in line and be quick about it, brats!"

I've heard about it before. Child soldiers, I mean. Back in my world, under international law, the recruitment of children into military forces is forbidden, and is actually considered to be a war crime. Are there such things as war crimes for a shinobi?

_Doubtful. Highly doubtful._

"What are the lot of you, deaf?" The Amagasa shinobi impatiently roared at us, and we collectively flinched when he cracked his knuckles menacingly in our general direction, "Get on with it already!"

…

Line up in front of the straw dummies. Toss knives at the target's throat. Aim those kunai for the heart. Repeat. If you missed one time too many, then the Amagasa man in charge would launch a knife at _you_, despite the fact that it wasn't even time for dodging practice yet -and really, what did _they_ care? It was just another brat, just another extra mouth to feed, and if it couldn't pull its own weight then it was better off dead.

Obviously.

Our days bled into a pattern. Throw knives, dodge knives, go back to the cage. We were fed twice a day, with some sort of foul-smelling slop in a huge stone bowl that no one dared to even _touch_ at first. And this was saying a lot, considering how all of us were starving, underfed children.

Before the first week was out, the bowl was licked clean every single time.

Initially, we did nothing. We complied with whatever the Amagasa shinobi told us to do. Disobedience was always punished, punished _without exception_, and those punishments _hurt_. Although, unless you were actively defying them or deliberately trying to undermine their authority, the punishments that they inflicted usually weren't too major or life-threatening. Granted, the punishments were always enough to send you into a world of nothing excruciating _pain_ -but that was the entire point of it. Their main purpose wasn't so much to kill us as to instill _fear_ within us, fear so great and powerful that they would eventually even override our survival instincts to guarantee that we would submit to their every order.

If you refused to obey an order, you would be punished. But if you didn't resist and just listened to whatever the ninjas told you to do -whether it be to wash their clothes or gut that kid sitting next to you- then you would be safe. The logic was that simple. Complying with the ninjas even though your conscience rebelled against you and made you feel sick and dirty to the core really wasn't as great a tragedy as opposing said ninjas simply for that brief moment of satisfaction and _freedom_ -right before their whips tore into you viciously.

… What can I say? This method was extremely effective in making us obedient and docile, never thinking to question any orders that were given to us.

We had long exceeded our breaking point.

* * *

_"Guys, listen. We have to escape," My tired eyes squinted towards the boy who'd spoken. His hazel orbs were burning with determination and unspoken resolve under the wan light of the pale moon. I shivered, and it wasn't entirely from the chilly breeze that had just brushed past. The intensity of those emotions in his eyes... they were born of a fear and helplessness and desperation that a child shouldn't be feeling, shouldn't_ ever_ have to feel, and yet he _was_._

_I swallowed roughly._

_We _all_ were._

_The boy's eyes scanned over our haggard bodies and gaunt faces before he continued on, a note of urgency plaintive in his young voice. "We've got to get out of here. We have to. Before they kill us all."_

_Soft murmurs immediately broke out amongst us as the seeds of discord were sown in our ranks. Who in their right minds _wouldn't_ want to escape? But escape would definitely be punished, and punishments _hurt_, and there was no doubt that attempting to escape would warrant the most painful punishment yet..._

_"How?" An anguished voice broke through the quiet din, sounding clear above the myriad of voices somewhere from the leftmost corner of the cage. "It's impossible. The Masters, they'll... they'll catch us, and... and..."_

_A chill ran down my spine involuntarily. The consequences of failure didn't even bear _thinking_ about._

_Burrowing deeper into the long straw littering the bottom of the cage, straw that the Amagasa ninjas had thrown in earlier in the day when we learned to throw shuriken, I began to tune out the voices around me. Yes, I wanted to escape. Yes, I wanted to get away. Yes, I wanted to go home. I wanted to get out of this place so _badly.

_... But a heavily abused lot of weak, underfed children, many of whom were injured, escape from trained murderers and killers? __Never mind the fact that there was a pulse of chakra coiled somewhere in the darkness of the night, right above our cage... Never mind the fact that this chakra that wasn't quite the_ smoothsoftcalm_ of sleep anymore, but a _roughflickeralert_ instead..._

_I wrapped my arms around my knees and remained silent. My heart began pounding a little bit harder in my chest, a little bit faster. Should I... should I say something? That the escape _definitely_ wasn't going to work, not with the ninjas already alerted to our intentions? But stopping the escape would only turn the majority of my fellow cagemates against me, and I probably wouldn't survive the next training session even if I_ did_ manage to convince them to abandon their attempt to run away_..._ not to mention, it might, just _might_ draw the attention of the Amagasa ninjas to me... which was something I wanted to avoid at all costs. If they were capable of making us suffer so much _without _really being focused on us, what would piquing their interest bring?_

_My hands trembled lightly before I managed to still them. _

_Sweet_ kami.

_What should I do...?_

_"We can do this. If we all run out of the cage at once, then at least_ some_ of us will be able to escape!" The charismatic boy's eyes were blazing now, blazing with an intensity that, had I really been a guileless child wallowing in despair just like the rest of them... I probably would've been completely entranced and enamored with._

_"We have to at least try. Besides, how do you know that we _won't_ succeed if we don't even try? The Amagasa bastards may control our bodies with their chains and whips, but they will never control our heart!"_

_Some of the children, inspired by the boy's words and caught up in the heat of the moment -drunk upon the feeling of hope that they never thought that they'd ever feel again, hope that they'd been denied for so_ long-_ immediately agreed with the hazel-eyed boy, and began to put together their daring escape. Others, like the hesitant boy who'd voiced his fear and concern, still felt rather scared and unsure -but were easily convinced that this was going to be the best chance that they'd ever have to escape the terrible Amagasa men. This was going to be their best shot at returning to their respective villages, to the cozy comfort of their families._

_I briefly wondered how my biological mother and grandfather were faring, before shaking my head. This wasn't exactly the time to be reminiscing._

_There was a tense mixture of excitement and fear that hovered over us after that, even as we gradually fell silent once more. Most of the children decided to go along with the escape plan, which was to be put into action the very next day. But a few of them, like me, had remained silent throughout this entire debacle. Though whether it was because they had recognized the futility of those efforts or because they'd been completely broken by the Amagasa ninjas..._

_Well. At any rate, I don't think any of us slept that night._

_The plan was so laughably simple that it bordered on the line of ludicrous. Preposterous. Impossible. A heavily abused lot of weak, underfed children, escape from trained murderers and killers?_

_The escape was doomed from the start._

_I didn't move a single muscle when the Amagasa ninjas sauntered over to open our cage the next morning. Not when the door swung upon, and not when the other kids immediately made a break for the exit, just like they'd planned to do the previous night. They plowed over each other, pushing and shoving wildly, as bursts of adrenalin fueled them on, sprinting as fast as their nimble legs could carry them._

_Including myself, only ten kids in our thirty-strong group hadn't attempted to run. _

_We watched together in total silence -and mounting horror- as the Amagasa shinobi nodded to each other like they'd expected this to happen (of course they did, why wouldn't they?) and proceeded to systematically _slaughter_ each and every one of the escapees._

_"Not many docile ones in this batch, eh, Makoto?" One of the men laughed as his katana bit into a little girl's side and continued on unobstructed like a knife through butter, twisting under the ribs, slicing through the stomach, and-_

_I screwed my eyes shut, burying my face into my arms and feeling vaguely nauseous, my empty stomach clenching in upon itself repeatedly. There was a sharp gasp somewhere off to my left, and someone else screamed._

_Please, please let this be over already!_

_"Tch, it doesn't really matter much," another man sounded completely bored, and I heard another scream in the not-so-far distance, "At least we know that the ones still left in the cage won't run away."_

_Where to? We didn't run not because we didn't _want_ to, but because we knew that resistance would be completely and utterly useless at this point in time -and would only inevitably lead to our deaths._

_"I... I-I'm scared."_

_I turned, seeing a little girl with bright verdant eyes shrink into a pile of the cage's straw, unable to tear her gaze away from the ongoing butchery. The older girl quivering next to her managed to reach over with a sympathetic hand and cover the young child's eyes, drawing the little girl closer to herself._

_I closed my eyes as well._

_…_

_Our training that day in the late afternoon consisted of learning various weak points in the human body, complete with real life demonstrations and practices on corpses that hadn't quite cooled yet. I threw up in the middle of our lessons -multiple times on multiple occassions- and I wasn't the only one who did._

_One of the Amagasa shinobi groaned, annoyance leaking through his voice as he nursed his temples in irritation. "Peasants." He spat out the word like it was dirt on his tongue. "Do they always have to react this strongly to seeing a little blood?"_

_That callous remark must've been the last straw that broke the camel's back for the emerald-eyed little girl, who started crying at that callous remark -not the quiet hiccups that had been escaping from her throat all day, but full-blown_ bawling_. My heart soared out to her -even though we looked around the same age physically, she was still just a child, and no child should _ever_ have to-_

_"I-I-I," She sniffled, sharp intakes of breath punctuating her words with each tearful sob, "I w-want to go h-h-home. I want m-my Mama. I d-d-don't_ w-want_ to do a-any of t-this anymo-"_

_A kunai whistled through the air._

_..._

_I wanted to scream, to shriek, to rage, but all that came out was a shaky sob and a feeling of utter helplessness gnawing at my chest as I watched another body drop listlessly to the bloody ground._

_Nine brats left._

* * *

...

You'd think that we'd bond together, as children who'd been captured from their homes and suffered under the cruel hands of the pitiless Amagasa ninjas. You'd think that we'd be able to find solace and comfort with each other every night, after the horrors of the day were finally over and we huddled tightly next to each other for warmth.

You'd be dead wrong.

That massacre had changed everything. Training sessions became even more brutal than before -not to mention _lethal_- as the ninjas literally _pounded_ obedience into us, and we quickly learned that we could only rely on ourselves the hard way.

Why emotionally attach yourself to someone who might get a shuriken lodged in their head the very next day? Why smile and encourage someone who might be the kid holding a knife in front of you during the next training session? Why help someone out of their denial and depression if it helped them dry their tears and look at you with cold, unfeeling eyes before their kunai bore down on your throat?

It wasn't worth it.

_"Say, Makoto. That tiny little shrimp over there has a pretty good aim, right?"_

_"Quite. I suppose that making the brats use each other as targets has its uses... They improve much faster when their lives are on the line instead of being simply... disciplined by us."_

_"Hahaha, you're so heartless that it gives me the chills sometimes, Makoto!"_

_"... Says the man who came up with the idea in the first place?"_

The Amagasa shinobi laughed uproariously at their private little joke, even as a sharp throwing knife dug its way into a young boy's forehead.

I slowly lowered my outstretched arm, desperately wishing I could feel _something_ -revulsion, disgust, self-loathing, anything, _anything_ but this growing numbness in my chest and mere twist in my stomach. Anything, anything, _anything_ that would tell me that this was _wrong_, that I _wasn't_ supposed to kill people, _wasn't_ supposed to be a _murderer_. What had ever happened to my morality and humanity? Had I really sunk so low as to murder _children_ for the sake of prolonging my own survival? I, a woman who was_ supposed_ to be dead?

_… I'm such a spineless coward._

I glanced down at my hands. Mottled with scars and bruises, yes, but deceptively devoid of blood. Clenching them into fists and watching them unfurl again, I felt my lips twitch themselves into a small frown. They should be red. They should be disfigured. They should be hideous and twisted and reek of evil on _sight_, because they belonged to a _monster_.

…

My hands had stopped shaking a long time ago.

* * *

_"Hey there, little sister. You're one of the newbies, aren't you?"_

_Lifting my head from my arms, I found myself looking up into the sharp grin of an auburn-headed girl. I fidgeted uncomfortably for a few moments under her intense scrutinity before letting my ashen gaze drop back to the long straw that littered the floor of the new cage I'd been moved into, a cage with taller and stronger kids who towered over my diminutive form._

New cage.

_For some reason, those words left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth._

_"'Course you are. I'd definitely remember if we had someone as young as you here," The older girl smiled at me, though there was a definite tinge of sorrow and pity to her tone. "Well... You must be made of some pretty tough stuff if you survived the initiation."_

_It was like being electrocuted with a lightning jutsu before being dunked with a pail of water, and trust me, I _know_ what that feels like firsthand. My mind froze, my body went numb, and for a crazy moment, I forgot how to _breathe_._

_Initiation._

**Initiation.**

_… That was just the _initiation?

_Some of the shock from my haywire emotions must've leaked through my expression, because the older girl reached over and patted me on the head sympathetically."Yeah, I know what that feels like, little sis. There's a lot more terrors they've got in store for us after the initiation. Weed out the weaklings from their catch, y'know? ... Oh, and this probably doesn't mean much anymore, but hey..."_

_She shrugged._

_"Welcome to hell, sister."_

_I almost snorted at her choice of wording if I wasn't so close to hysterics already._

_Welcome to hell?_

Welcome to hell?

* * *

_… I've been here for a long time already, and I'd like to get out. But that's just a foolish little fantasy of mine. Would you call me a hopeless nutcase for even entertaining this delusional thought? Or would you think me insane?_

_Perhaps I already am._

_..._

_No. No no no no _no.

_I still have to hang on in here. Still have to remember who I _am_. I'm a woman. I'm a child. I'm a scientist. I'm a peasant. I'm _Sen_. I'm _not_ a heartless weapon, a killing machine, to be used and discarded by the Amagasa ninjas at their discretion. I have to persevere. I have to keep myself afloat just a little bit longer. Just a _little_ longer._

_I may be broken now. I may be mad. It would be impossible not to be, not after everything the Amagasa ninjas put me through. Put _us_ through._

_But they haven't succeeded yet. I still remember who I am. I am not one of the mindless puppets they've started turning the rest of us into. I'm stronger than that. I'm not_ that_ far gone yet._

_... For now._

* * *

.

...

.

Author's Notes:

Much faster update this time. Finally managed to get a bunch of stuff out of the way and sit down to crank out some writing. V^^V I tend to post stuff when I finish them, which is why I always ask about grammar errors. Big thanks to everyone who reviewed and showed their support!

It's kinda dark-ish this time and a little disjointed, but I hope that it doesn't deter people... I didn't want to dedicate a lot of chapters to the Amagasa Clan training their child captives since I still wanted to move along with the plot (and because then it would've been COMPLETELY DARK), so I tried to just get some of the important stuff in here. Like how some of the hotheaded kids trying to escape (similar to how heroes/good guys always prevail in the stories), only to fail and... well. You know what happened.

A few questions that I want to address: _Yes_, the story is taking place in the time period of Hashirama and Madara, before any of the ninja villages have been formed. Sorry if I wasn't really clear on that before. _Yes_, the story will eventually involve the Senju and Uchiha Clans -a LOT- though you may see a few more made-up OC Clans before that. The Uzumaki Clan will most likely be involved later on as well -I'm still working on the details of that bit. xD

I think there's more of a focus on Sen's mentality and thoughts to the events around her in this chapter instead of actual "in-the-moment" action. I'm planning on putting some action into the next chapter, but I'm not too sure yet -I only have a few sentences typed out right now. ^^" There'll probably be a timeskip to Sen when she's older, almost a teenager or something, and maybe a few flashbacks.

But that's enough of the next chapter, I don't want to give too much away. ^^ A penny for your thoughts on _this _chapter? :D

-XxZuiliu


	4. IV

_"Higher, little sister," the tall, auburn-haired girl chided me as we spun, her fists belying her light words as they lashed out viciously, giving me a heavy blow directly across the face. I stumbled backwards from the force of the sudden blow, wincing as I spat out another mouthful of blood to the side. Biting yourself on the cheek wasn't a very pleasant sensation, particularly when it happened repeatedly, several times a day. I only had myself to blame for letting it happen, though..._

"_You need to raise your arms higher, or the enemy will get through your guard! Yeah, it's tiring, I know, but you've got to suck it up like the rest of us before you end up like _them._"_

_Them. _Them.

_I faltered slightly at the sharp reminder, before I began attacking with a new fervor._

_Everyone knew who _they_ were. _They_ were the worthless ones, the children who'd been deemed too weak to ever be of any use to the Amagasa Clan. _They_ were usually disposed of within a few days after their redesignation, often as training dummies for the rest of us. One less mouth to drain the resources of the Clan, one less useless weight to haul around._

_When you became one of _them_, you were as good as dead._

_..._

_My stamina wasn't the best. My physical strength was laughable. My speed teetered on the brink of average. One one hand, it was only to be expected -the majority of the children here were older than me, after all. They had a high advantage on their side -in terms of their body growth and physical development, if not their minds._

_(You'd be surprised at how quickly we age in a ninja clan.)_

_On the other hand, age didn't matter on the battlefield. Age didn't matter in _survival_. So if you hesitated to gut the kid next to you when the Amagasa shinobi spontaneously decided to declare a free-for-all battle royale one day, you were _dead_._

"_Everyone thinks you're useless in close combat," the older girl continued relentlessly, her oncoming kick swinging into my stomach and knocking away my breath in one smooth blow, "Which is true. And we're gonna fix that today, okay? That way you can give them a nasty surprise when they get too close to you, and-"_

"_Why do you even care?"_

_I couldn't help it. Those words just... tumbled out of my mouth, true but not of my own volition. I bit my lip in a subconscious gesture before falling silent again. Was I really in any position to be inquiring that of her, anyways?_

_My sudden question took the other girl by surprise, and her next punch faltered. Undeterred, I immediately took that opportunity to press my advantage on the opening I glimpsed. Rare chances like this didn't happen often, after all..._

"_Why do I even care?" she echoed disbelievingly, a note of something I couldn't quite place in her voice -something between a mixture of incredulity and deep, deep sorrow- "You-how-no, don't even get me into that. You shouldn't even _be_ here... and you're asking me why I care? _Why do I even care?"

_Though her voice began to grow heated and rose in volume, it was quickly drowned by the deafening roar of the Amagasa ninja's bellow._

"_FREE-FOR-ALL!"_

_No more words passed between us after that. I automatically turned around and took a step backwards, knowing that she'd do the same. There was a single heartbeat before I felt her back pressed against mine. _

_How many times had we done this together? How many more times would we have to do this again in the future?_

_I cast away all thoughts as the first of the other children -no, our opponents, ones who were ready and willing to kill- turned their predatory gazes upon us. We readied our fighting stances, bracing ourselves to take on all the other monsters who were baring their fangs around us... and everything turned red._

_Kick, jab, parry, twist-_

_The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I immediately whipped around -here you learned to rely on your instincts, and right now those instincts were telling me that I needed to-_

"_WATCH OUT!"_

_**RED.**_

…

…

…

_You shouldn't be here._

…

…

…

… _Why do you even care?_

* * *

It's frightening, how easy it is to lose track of time in this place. Days swiftly turn into weeks, morphing into months, and soon blending into _years_. It's hard to pinpoint the exact passage of time, honestly -only the change of the seasons, whether it was from the delicate rains of spring to the blistering heat of summer, or from the bone-chilling winds of autumn to the silent snow of winter... those were the only things that really signified any trace of the time trickling past.

Well... that, and a few other things.

The Amagasa Clan had raided many villages, and thus were able to gather many children to fight for them. The longer you survived their training, the more it spoke for your ability -and the more _useful_ you became to them. It wasn't just a step up to taking care of their household chores and acting as servants for them in addition to the grueling training. Really, it meant a great deal if the clan allowed you to even come _near_ their living quarters. It wasn't just a step up to getting better weapons than the cheap knives whose blades chipped and fractured so easily, either.

It was _so_ much more than that.

Maybe it was how we were slowly treated more like human beings. Maybe it was a direct result of our strength was growing, and they had to ensure that we would remain forever loyal and obedient. Maybe it was because they wanted us to believe that they were really our _saviors_. That they were the ones who had _rescued_ us from the widespread starvation ravaging our villages. That they were the ones who were willing to give us a new chance at life so long as we worked hard enough for it.

...

Children tend to have short memories, particularly the young. When all they hear each day is how they should serve the Amagasa Clan, that eventually becomes _reality_ for them. Not only does it become reality, it also becomes the way they _should_ live, the way _that_ they live.

The dead do not speak, and the living do not remember.

They slowly begin forgetting those days of horror. Those days of nothing but slaughter and kill, and kill and slaughter. They forget the sadistic gleam in the eyes of their Amagasa trainers, their Masters, forget how they laughed at our tears and pain and _suffering_. When you improve, they look at you in a new perspective -and maybe instead of training all day, they'd encourage you to help out in the garden. Maybe wash a few bowls.

While you were out doing the chore, you'd come across other members of the Amagasa Clan. Maybe you'd run into a nice lady who'd sneak you some extra food, maybe you'd run into some children who invited you into their game. It would be scary and awkward the first few times. Suspicious the second. Strange and nerve-wracking the next few.

Eventually, it would come to a point where it become somewhat of a routine of sorts -and you found yourself, the scrawny misfit who meant _nothing_ and _was_ nothing, remembered by these people. These people who _smiled_ at you. These people who you were _familiar_ with. These people who _integrated_ you almost as if you were one of their own.

_Almost._

… And then you can only see what they want you to see in front of you, until one day you finally realize that you don't _remember_ anymore. You don't remember all the pain and fear you endured when you were first brought into the Clan. You don't remember how those cruel masters are just as one of those _nice_ Amagasa Clan members as they make you _think_ you are.

To this day, I'm still not sure which is scarier -not _remembering_, or not even _caring_ that you don't remember anymore.

The Amagasa Clan had made sure to send us this blatant message: "Effort and skill do not go unrewarded." Why, just the other day, one of the boys from our group had been "adopted" by one of the smaller and slightly less influential Amagasa ninja branch families.

It was a rather clever ploy on their behalf. Take a look at the underlying words that they were trying to convey to us:

"See, we even accepted one of you _outsider_ children as our own. So work harder. If you become as strong as him, as loyal as him, as _useful_ as him, then we'll officially take you in and make you as one of our own, too."

They named him Hiroshi. _Generous_. For this was an act that showed the magnanimous ways of the Amagasa Clan.

… Would it be a surprise to you if I told you that I knew that boy before he was accepted into the clan? Not very well on a personal level, of course, but well enough that I can formulate a basic grasp on his personality and psyche.

He's nothing more than a puppet that danced to the tune of the Amagasa Clan.

Did it really matter that his muscular frame was heavier than ours, that he could pack more strength behind his blows? Did it really matter that he was faster than us, more durable, more agile? Did it really _matter?_

… Perhaps I'm not being clear enough. Are _those_ the qualities that _really_ matter to the Amagasa Clan?

That boy... he'd long forgotten his own name after being abducted by the Amagasa ninjas. The name that was given to by the father that he cherished and spoke of so fondly in what seemed to be an entire lifetime ago.

_My name is Sen. Just Sen. No surname._ _After all, simple peasants don't have family names. I am not the toy of a ninja, not something for them to play with and discard upon a whim. I'm not a ninja. I'm not I'm not I'M NOT._

_Not a ninja. Not a shinobi. Not a cruel, heartless killer_. _Not a _murderer.

(_... But if that isn't what I am... then what _am_ I?_)

I scrubbed my hands harder in the cold stream, as if I could wash off that pungent scent of blood if I somehow managed to scrape off another layer of peeling skin on my numb fingers. That scrape with that fire jutsu in the last skirmish had been way too close for my own comfort. _Way_ too close.

"Yo."

I stopped my muscles from tensing just in time, forcibly relaxing my body -not completely, though, mind you- and instead simply gave a terse nod to the young russet-headed boy who'd come up behind me. My eyes continued to follow him until he squatted down along the stream a few feet away from me and began methodically cleaning his equipment before I turned back to my own devices.

Caution was never necessarily a bad thing. Neither was paranoia, for that matter.

"... Close call, huh?"

I ignored him. Stony, unmoving silence had always deterred the other children -most of them, anyways- and words led to relations, which led to _bonds_. And _that_, more often than not, was always a liability on the battlefield.

"Er… those scars there look pretty nasty. So, how long have you been here?"

I yanked the damp, oversized Amagasa clan shirt over my head. Finished washing, I stood up and-

"Wait! Don't leave! I-I'm sorry if I said anything wrong, okay?" Swallowing roughly, the boy gulped, panicking when I made to walk away and ignore him.

… Well. This was a persistent one. Judging from the tone in his voice and his body language -too loose, not fluid, awkward and clumsy- he was probably one of the "newbies" who'd been brought back last week.

I finally glanced over my shoulder at the boy, and watched him flinch backwards from me.

_I wonder... what does he see in these eyes, eyes which have seen so much blood?_

"Y-You don't h-have to _glare_ at me, y'know..."

I spun on my heel and left.

Growing up in a place like the Amagasa Clan could leave a child with... strange habits. There were even children who would _attack_ another child if they thought the other was talking too much. The Amagasa shinobi did nothing to discourage this -in fact, they even seemed to _encourage_ it.

It was just another way to "weed out the weaklings," so to say. The boy was lucky that I didn't have those same... psychopathic tendencies.

… At least, I don't _think_ I did.

(Self-delusion is a very subtle art.)

There were the choking sounds of stifled sobs behind me, and I resolutely hardened my heart. Though it was not made of stone, it was much more jaded than it should ever be, and something as simple as a child crying wouldn't be enough to move it.

At. All.

The crackling noise of the dry crunches of withered grass being crushed underfoot caught me off guard for a sudden moment there. Honestly, I could've sworn that they'd been fresh and green mere seconds ago...

* * *

"Hey, Mamoru. Ya ever considered adopting one of those brats? You're one of their 'Masters,' ain'tcha?"

"..."

"It'd be good for ya. Probably. I mean, it's 'bout time ya finally pull yerself back together from your slump when your-"

"Hideki?"

"Yeah?"

"_Shut up."_

* * *

It's ironic, how only through spilling blood on blood over the battlefield do I truly feel alive.

Nauseating in the aftermath, too.

Living with the Amagasa Clan is... empty. Hollow. Because no matter how much they try to hide or disguise it so that even the children themselves don't notice, their child soldiers inevitably become but a mere husk of their former selves. Children with a weaker will lose their sense of self entirely, as they blindly follow the Amagasa ninjas, their _Masters_, the ones that they must remain forever loyal and faithful to. There eventually comes a point when they stop thinking for themselves entirely and just _obey_.

(Because _obeying_ is so much easier than thinking for yourself... and a lot less painful, too.)

Spin, jump, leap.

Alive.

Alive, alive, _alive_.

I almost _laughed_ from sheer _giddiness_, my entire body feeling as if it had been set aflame. This feeling, this _euphoria_... it was better than any high that any crack could ever hope to grant or offer, so dark, forbidden, downright _dangerous_ and yet so goddamned _intoxicating_...

Here on the battlefield, only chaos reigns. Here on the battlefield, it's either you or him. Here on the battlefield, there's _freedom_. Because no one can dictate your actions on the battlefield when they themselves are too busy fighting and killing and killing and fighting.

Here on the battlefield, there is a short reprise from the overbearing doctrines of the Amagasa Clan. Even if you must spill blood on blood in order to achieve that freedom... it's worth it, if only barely.

(Or is it really worth it at all?)

It's ever so easy to lose track of things when you're on the battlefield, but that's a surefire way to become even _more_ vulnerable when you already are. Take a look at it this way. It's one thing to be impaled on a katana by the highly skilled ninja in front of you. But taking a kunai to the back just because you weren't observant enough?

(It was lucky that the kunai hadn't found my spine the first time around, and I wasn't willing to take a gambit on that again. Once was enough, thank you very much.)

I liked to think I was a bit more... _versatile_ than the other children. I was better at using the surroundings of the environment to my advantage -whether it be fighting in the canopies and maneuvering the enemy shinobi so that they'd have to smash through tree branches to reach me, or whether it be imbuing chakra in the ground to weaken the soil and make the other ninja slip at a most inopportune moment.

So what if I wasn't the strongest or the fastest compared to all the other children who'd been brainwashed by the Amagasa Clan? Their stellar performance during training sessions gave them false confidence, making them the first to charge into battle, making them _careless_...

… and carelessness had no place on the battlefield.

(Come to think of it, since when did _children_ have a place on the battlefield, either?)

Air exited my burning lungs in one fell swoop as I dropped to the ground, mud splattering over my clothes as a giant cleaver swung over my head. Palming a shuriken and flinging it at the other ninja's outstretched limb, I quickly _rolled_ for all I was worth as the cleaver came crashing down again, right in the spot I'd occupied a millisecond ago.

"Just stay _still_ you little piece of shi-"

There's this interesting little fact about mud. If you jab something into it at a high velocity, said object has this tendency to get _stuck_. Now, for someone with as much physical strength as a ninja, it won't matter very much. What _will_ matter is that it'll still take them a split second to summon up that monstrous strength to yank the object back out.

And there's a lot of things that someone trained in the ninja arts can accomplish in a split second.

No seals. No words. Just the _flickertwistturn_ of chakra and-

An earth spike shot up from the ground, impaling the man straight through his stomach, lifting him clear off of his feet, and then there was _blood_.

I sucked in a short breath of air and scanned the marshy terrain for my next opponent, darting forwards in a slight zigzag as I did so.

(When you're on the battlefield, _never_ stand still. When you stay still you _stand out_, and that's just _begging_ for someone sharp to lob a kunai at your head.)

"NO! S... St-Stay away! STAY AWAY!"

That voice sounded familiar. Which _couldn't_ be right. There wasn't supposed to be a familiar voice that could cause my stomach to churn uncomfortably when it screamed in undiluted terror and pain, there _wasn't supposed to be one!_

My eyes flickered to the left involuntarily.

…

It was him. The boy. The scared newbie who'd squatted down next to me by the stream and attempted to strike up a conversation with me.

But how in the world could he evoke such a response from me...?

I don't do this. I don't form attachments with people after merely seeing them once. That was what _she_ did. Not me. Not me, not me, _never_ me.

The emotionless ninja standing over the little boy's bloodied form raised the silvery katana in his hand.

"You shouldn't be here."

…

_You shouldn't be here._

…

Legs burning as I _ran_, I channeled chakra into my hands -_no time to draw a kunai, no time to grab him and _run- and brought them together in a clapping motion, catching the icy katana's blade just before it bit into my body.

The blade shattered.

…

…

…

_Why do you even care?_

* * *

.

...

.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. Let's just say that life decided to throw a sudden curveball at me and everything got _really_ crazy in the last couple of weeks... so, instead of BS-ing this chapter and posting a bunch of unintelligible nonsense, I decided to stick it onto the shelf until I could get around to sitting down and _properly _writing it out.

UPDATES WILL STILL BE SLOW FOR AWHILE (Probably will be faster than a month. 2 weeks, maybe?). APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE.

... Anyways.

THERE IS NO GIGANTIC TIMESKIP HERE. Sorry. Sen is still a kid -an older kid, yes, but nonetheless still a kid. Just to clear things up, the italicized section in the very beginning was part of her life in the Amagasa Clan when she was a younger kid. It'll probably continue on for a few chapters. I think.

There should be around three more chapters until we hit the interesting stuff, I think. Y'know, the "stuff" involving the Senju/Uchiha/Uzumaki Clans. ^^ Are there any specific interactions that you're looking forward to? :D I'm actually really looking forward to writing that part... as soon as I'm through with the "Amagasa Clan life" phase. :/

Thank you so much to everyone for your encouragements and support of this story! :D I hope I didn't deter too many people with my sudden hiatus, and I would appreciate feedback! Especially on this chapter, since it feels a little choppier than usual and I'm still trying to get back in the swing of writing things.

Until next time! (Which probably won't be too far off. I think. ^^ No promises, but I'll do my best depending on what people think!)

-XxZuiliu


	5. V

"_You're an idiot."_

_The insult was straightforward and blunt, but half-hearted at best, so the older girl easily waved off my harsh words with a small grin settling over her pale, blood-flecked lips._

"_Ehh, it's not as bad as it looks. Really."_

_The grin-turned-grimace that appeared on her face when she pushed herself up from the pile of rotting straw gave away her false bravado. Faint tinges of red began reappearing again under the coarse fabric stretched thinly over her back, retracing the outline of the deep slash that had been made across her back._

_I watched as she settled into a careful crouch, keeping the wound on her back towards me as she sat down, the two of us unconsciously settling back into the habit of keeping a steady semi-watch on the other children trapped inside the cage with us._

_(How many of them had snapped already? How many of them were barely clinging onto those precious strands of sanity?) _

_Survival of the fittest... how many of the stronger children had been assaulted in their sleep by others? How many of the weaker children had been finished off as they attempted to blend into the background? How many of the _injured_ children had been attacked during their scant moments of frailty?_

_Advantages were _always _meant to be capitalized upon..._

_A wave of auburn hair swept over my eyes, and I blinked at the sudden movement from the older girl turning around._

"_Hey, are you alright? You're pretty quiet today."_

She_ was the one who was injured. And she was asking about _my_ well-being?_

_Blue eyes shone with a layer of ill-concealed concern -no, she made no effort to hide her concern _at all- _as the girl leaned over towards me._

"_You kinda look like you're a little out of it today. More so than usual... Geez, what do you think about all day? It's like you're an old grandma or something!"_

_The faintest trace of a wry smile curled over my lips. _

_(Oh, the irony of that innocent remark...)_

_Then my eyes narrowed._

_Someone's chakra wasn't quite the _stillsilentresting_ fatigue anymore, more of a _carefulsneakysly_ excitement, and there was this sudden movement over there in the corner of my peripheral vision, right where-_

_!_

_Sapphire eyes widened, and I _moved.

…

…

…

_Why do you even care?_

* * *

My hands were dripping with blood.

Around us, the sounds of battle raged on. Steel struck steel in its strident chorus, and interspersed within it were the occasional crackles of fire and the offbeat rumbles of the very earth itself being reshaped to a foreign chakra's will. Shouts and cries littered the air -some of grim determination, and others of panicked desperation. Imbued within it all was the heavy pressure of chakra being rained everywhere, and I felt another bead of sweat trickle down the side of my face.

_What the hell am I doing?_

The other shinobi's eyes had widened slightly at my sudden appearance as he'd been about to kill the boy, but that was the only reaction he gave in regards to me. There was another sword swinging at my head before I could even blink, and I leapt backwards, one arm automatically shooting out and dragging with me the shell-shocked boy who was rooted to the ground in pure, unadulterated _fear_.

(The very fear that _always_ ran through our veins. The same fear that froze our body in critical moments and led to our deaths, the same fear that heightened our survival instincts and made us _survive_._)_

"W-What-"

"_Shut up."_

Those were the only words that were exchanged between us before the other shinobi was upon us again.

This time, instead of leaping away again, I darted forward to meet his blows. Well, not precisely. My small body was much too weak to even _hope_ of standing a chance in winning a battle of pure physical strength. It was more of a...

_Twist the kunai against his blade, direct his strength elsewhere. Slide the blade forward under his guard following the previous momentum, ducking under his spinning kick, but retreating as his sword drew back in a deadly arc. Stab the kunai in the ground, vault my legs upwards, meet nothing but empty air as he quickly retracted his arm, preventing his wrist from snapping in half. Find my balance when my legs brush the ground again, reorient myself, dash to the side..._

Kunais whistled through the air, and I quickly wove my way through the silvery storm, escaping the torrent of knives. I was wary of plucking kunais out of their flight now -any weapon belonging to other ninjas in general, really. After all, you never knew which enemies liked to poison their weapons, and sometimes there were those shinobi who preferred to use ninja wires in tandem with their throwing projectiles...

"Ack!"

... _Crap_.

Dodging the kunais was easy. I'd been put through much worse during the training sessions of the Amagasa Clan. But any child would be hard-pressed to dodge when faced with a rain of knives like this, and the kunais that the ninja threw held not one, but _two_ targets, as its ultimate goal.

The boy. If he was-

My body spun around of its own accord at the startled shout that rose behind me, in the direction where I'd shoved the boy after grabbing him earlier -_why in the world _was that idiotic, _vulnerable_ little boy just_ sitting there _in the_ exact same spot? _Was this his first battle? Was his body numb now and refusing to move? Was this his mind still reeling from the shock of having almost died?

Damn it, I was too far away to make it to his position! If he didn't do something _now_, then it wouldn't _matter_ that I'd saved him earlier -and why did I do that, really?- and he was going to die anyways, because no one could survive being turned into a pincushion by kunais-

"You shouldn't be here, either."

In battles like this, no one bothered to hide their chakra signals, and they usually blazed like a _beacon_ of _fightslaughterkill_ that I _always_ managed to pick up on. Chakra spoke a lot about a person -their emotions, their strengths, and for me to completely _miss_ how his tightly-controlled chakra slipped into a smooth body flicker-

Something _spiked_ in my chest when I caught sight of an icy blade mere inches from sinking into my neck.

...

_Breathe. Breathe, girl! Get yourself together already! Why the hell are you so concerned about that boy, anyways? Focus! _Focus on the enemy in front of you!_ You almost _died_ just now because of getting _distracted. _Wasn't the fear of being distracted in battle the reason why you decided that it was better to refrain from making any attachments in the first place? Focus! Focus, girl!_

_... _

Two chunks of rotting wood dropped to the ground, splattered with blood.

...

"Why struggle?"

The shinobi's voice was so empty, so toneless, so _hollow_, and yet, _somehow_... I could _feel_ his words cutting into me... just as clearly as I'd felt his bone-chilling blade bite deep into my arm when I'd raised the limb in a futile effort to delay the inevitable, before my senses finally caught up with me and I'd executed the substitution technique.

My lips thinned.

_Why struggle?_

...

_To survive. Why else?_

My hands jerked unsteadily as I reached for another kunai strapped to the pouch on my leg, but I was forced to abandon that movement as the ninja quickly swept a handful of shurikens at me. There was a painful burning sensation that seared through my body as I forced more chakra to channel into my legs in a desperate attempt to enhance my speed, a sensation that I determinedly ignored. Better to feel like I've been stuffed through a grinder the next day than to not be able to even _see_ the next day at all.

When I glanced upwards, the icy blade of the ninja was almost upon me again. I was barely able to parry it aside in time. At this point, my entire body felt like it was made of lead -was this what it felt like, to be so hopelessly outclassed? To know that the only reason you were even breathing right now was because your enemy somehow pitied children? To know that your opponent was seeking to end the fight soon -as quickly and as painlessly as possible?

_Was this what it felt like to know that your efforts to save someone else had been wasted in vain? To know that you are about to surrender your own life in exchange for being unable to save another?_

It became harder and harder to avoid his blows. Harder and harder to get up again each time I was propelled into the ground in the face of overwhelming strength. Harder and harder to continue to _endure_, because I knew that there was going to be no end in sight.

No end that didn't result in my death, at least.

"Pity."

Shakily, I reached up a hand to wipe away a trail of blood from my mouth. Even _standing_ was such a laborious task now...

...

_Pity_.

Did he truly pity me? Pity the child who'd been forced onto the battlefield, not of her own will? The child who couldn't escape the shackles that the Amagasa Clan had forced upon her, no matter how hard she struggled? Or did he merely pity the loss of another life that perished at his hands? Pity the death of a child on the battlegrounds of men?

Not once did my eyes leave his lean form as he advanced towards me, bloodied sword held out to the side as blood trailed down its edge. _My_ blood. It made for a rather morbid sight. Perhaps he would wipe his blade clean on my corpse once he ran my heart through with that sword in his hands?

_Pity._

Pity, pity, pity.

_What use is there for pity, anyways?_

For some obscure reason, I felt like laughing in that single moment of startling clarity. All that struggle, all that pain I'd endured from the Amagasa ninjas... I'd only been fooling myself all along, hadn't I? To think that a _child_ could survive in this chaotic world built upon blood and steel. It'd all been _luck_ that I managed to make it this far with the odds stacked against me -_this is what happens when luck runs out_, and there was _nothing_ I could do about it.

(An illusion of becoming strong. Of growing and being able to survive. From dust we are born, and to dust we return.)

Had I been a dreamer, this would be the moment when I'd wait for a miracle to happen. This would be the moment when some superhero stepped in to save the day, or when the enemy's attention was diverted by other forces. Had I been a dreamer, this would be the moment where I'd put any and all effort into one final attack; one final assault that would surely fell the enemy before me.

But I'm _not_.

Once upon a time, I was a dreamer. But the dreamer grew up, and became a realist. Years later, the realist died.

... Now, it seemed as if the realist would die _again_.

My mind was cluttered with so many stupid, inane things -clay bowls, filthy straw, smooth pebbles- and I couldn't focus anymore. Couldn't concentrate. Because I'm a _coward_ -and cowards value self preservation. Cowards fear death.

_But don't cowards _deserve_ to die?_

I closed my eyes.

...

"L-Leave her alone!"

...

His chakra. The ninja's chakra. It _fluctuated_, spinning wildly for a moment -and my eyes snapped open.

_Miracle. This is a _miracle.

But this was no time for dazed, half-formed thoughts. Because the crazy russet-haired boy had somehow _tackled_ that ninja -_alive_, the boy was still _alive!_- and was currently clinging onto his middle like a man possessed, and the only reason that the shinobi hadn't retaliated yet was because his balance had been _completely _thrown off in that single instant, though it wouldn't -_couldn't_- last long-

_A moment of hesitation. A distraction._

_A moment of weakness. An opportunity._

_A moment of vulnerability. An advantage._

_... Advantages are _always_ meant to be capitalized upon._

...

There was a kunai in my hand before I even registered my burning limbs moving again -I hadn't even been aware that I _could_ move anymore- and my legs were screaming in protest as I forcibly launched my tiny body into the air and-

_**RED.**_

...

...

...

* * *

"So. Whaddya think? Any of those brats in today's skirmish good enough to meet your standards, Mamoru?"

"..."

"Look. You _do_ realize that I'm not just pestering you for the heck of it, right? I'm doing this for your own good, too. Getting another kid under your wing will probably be good for you. Ever since _he_ died, you've just been getting more and more-"

"Hideki. _Shut up._"

"No. No, I will _not_ 'shut up,' as you so eloquently put it. You have to get yourself together again _before you kill yourself!_ Your fighting style now -_do you even realize how suicidal it is? _What if I _hadn't_ been there to watch your back today, Mamoru?"

"... Maybe I would be better off dead, then."

* * *

By all means, I should be _dead_ by now. Should've died today under that nameless shinobi's icy blade on the marshland mere hours ago. Should've died under the skill of a superior ninja. Should've, should've, _should've_, but _didn't._

And what a world of difference it was.

"My name is Naoki!"

... I had the distinct impression that this was where the other person offered their own name in response as per etiquette. However, small courtesies like that had never been observed here.

Not within the cages. _Never_ within the cages.

Though, come to think of it... this blue-eyed boy, this 'Naoki'... he was just a _newbie_ -earlier events had only served as further proof attesting for that fact- so why in the world was he in _this _cage now?

_This_ cage wasn't the one that was constantly filled to the brim with new recruits, who stumbled around blindly as they struggled to make a place for themselves in the ranks of the Amagasa Clan's child soldiers. Instead, _this_ cage carried a great deal less children in comparison to all the other cages -and with good reason, too.

_This_ was the cage of the survivors. The "veterans," you could say, amongst the child soldiers. The ones who'd fought and killed more than any other children, the ones who'd lived under the tender care of the Amagasa Clan for the longest time. The ones who held no qualms about obeying any and all orders that they were given, the ones who would carry out their tasks without fail, even if it resulted in their death.

... So why was _he_ here?

"Er... um..." The hopeful grin on the russet-haired boy's face faltered in wake of my continued silence, causing him to cast his brilliant blue eyes downwards. His foot inched outwards nervously to fiddle with the few strands of straw scattered on the ground near the spot he was standing in.

My eyes flickered to his left when I felt a small chakra spike of _predatorhuntexcitement_ suddenly lance through the stale air.

"Sit down," I said abruptly, gesturing to the pile of straw I'd gathered in my corner of the cage.

"Eh?" Baby blue eyes blinked in bewilderment at what I'd just said, "What-"

_No time._

I jabbed the back of the boy's knee, ignoring his startled 'oomf!' of surprise as he crashed facefirst into my cozy stack of straw. There was a small gust of wind as a burly arm flashed through the space he'd occupied a second earlier, the muscles clenched tightly from the solid fist that was formed.

"Yer such a spoilsport, shrimp."

I gazed steadily back at a pair raven eyes. The sadistic older boy offered me a crooked grin.

"Ya sure he belongs 'ere with us?" He jerked a finger at the wide-eyed boy who was sprawled next to me on the straw, "He never even twitched when I came up behin' him, fer cryin' out lou-"

"Do you doubt the Masters?"

The sudden query I'd delivered was more than enough to shut him up.

(The reason goes as follows: The masters were the ones who placed the boy here with us, _they_ were the ones who moved him into _this_ cage. Saying that the boy didn't belong here could easily be twisted into an interpretation of him challenging the authority of the Masters, _questioning_ their decisions, and we were supposed to be nothing but perfectly docile and obedient...)

"... Che," the tall boy scowled darkly at me, in a disgruntled face as he was forced to back down from potential prey, "... If this is all he's got, then he's gonna get crushed in the next trainin' session, shrimp."

"Of course," I replied blandly. Some children were easily riled up by the words of others -easily goaded into fighting a battle where the pace was controlled by their opponent, something I'd sworn long ago to never let myself succumb to.

(Again.)

The older boy scowled even further at my response -or rather, lack thereof.

"I'm gonna bash yer head in the next time trainin' comes around, too. Jus' like how Haruka got hers crushed when-"

... Well. Well, well, _well._

He wanted a _response_, didn't he?

The barely-closed cuts over my palms reopened again with a bloody tear when I slammed them onto the ground and lashed out with a spinning kick, to which there was a heavy grunt when my feet caught the older boy directly on the chest -no, his forearms, he'd brought them up to block just in time. Pity I hadn't enhanced my movements with chakra, but unfortunately my chakra levels were still at an all-time low right now.

Otherwise, those bones in his arms would be _shattered_. Just like how _she_ had advised me to do when she'd worked on fixing my taijutsu during my earlier days with the Amagasa Clan.

Haruka.

...

_Memories. Memories of days when I always woke to a teasing laugh and a scarred hand reaching out to tousle my hair. Memories of days when there was a tall, auburn-haired girl teaching me what I needed to know to survive. Memories of days when I stood back to back with a blue-eyed girl defiantly in a sea of blood._

Wait.

_Auburn_ hair. _Blue_ eyes.

"D-Did you say... _Haruka?_"

The boy. Naoki. That boy with fiery hair and blue, blue eyes. Since when had my mind decided to unconsciously gloss over details like this?

My blood ran cold as I re-evaluated the little boy sitting next to me again. Yes, it was possible that many people simply shared physical similarities. In fact, I myself looked remarkably similar to many other children here -dark hair is _extremely_ common, though gray eyes come few and far between- but there was something about the boy, this _Naoki_, that I couldn't quite place my finger on.

Maybe it was the way he'd acted when he'd first met me down by the stream, the friendly demeanor that he'd somehow managed to retain even under the harsh doctrines of the Amagasa Clan. Maybe it was that _aura_ around him -something I'd only been subconsciously aware of before- that set him apart from the other children, marked him as _different_... just like the air that _she_ constantly wore around herself.

_Just like Haruka_.

...

But that _couldn't_ be right, could it? I mean, really, what were the chances of a coincidence like _this_ happening?

"Yeah, s'what I just said. _Ha-ru-ka._" The older boy sneered at the younger one, deliberately stretching out the syllables as he folded his arms over his chest languidly in a fluid motion. "What about it, _kid?_"

"Haruka..." The boy -Naoki- hesitated for a brief moment at the less than pleasant drawl the older boy had spoken to him in, before his brilliant azure eyes gained an edge of _determination_ to them (just like _hers_) and he lifted his chin to meet the older boy's gaze defiantly.

"Haruka, as in... Uzumaki Haruka?"

...

Uzumaki.

_Uzumaki._

That surname... it struck a chord within me, vaguely reminiscent of something... something _important_. I'd heard it somewhere before, I _know_ I did. A long, long, _long_ time ago, perhaps, but...

Uzumaki. _Uzumaki, Uzumaki, Uzumaki_. I can't _quite _recall where I'd heard it or even what it _was_, but...

_It's important. _I _know_ it is_._

"She went with auntie on the trip that time and never came back. Is she here, too? Haruka! She's my big sister -look, um, she's taller than me, but we've got the same hair and eyes, and-"

Sister.

Haruka.

Haruka... who'd died a long time ago.

_She was this boy's older sister._

...

Tch. Coincidence, indeed.

* * *

.

...

.

Author's Notes:

No, the little boy she met in the last chapter is an OC, not Hashirama. And on top of that, he's an _Uzumaki_. Anyone care to guess why/what might happen? xD Just as a small note, the Uzumaki Clan itself won't be involved for awhile yet.

Two little tidbits I'd like to address based on a few reviews I've gotten:

1) Why doesn't Sen just run away if the battlefield is so chaotic? Wouldn't she be able to escape the Amagasas then?

Personally, I'd expect the ninjas to all keep some level of awareness on the battlefield -if you see someone running away, who's to say that they're not running away to call for backup? Besides, even if Sen _did_ run away, she has nowhere to go to -she's separated from her family, no one would hire her for a job, and she'd probably wind up being snatched to be a child soldier for another clan instead.

If you look online at a few articles, child soldiers will go back to fighting for another group simply because they have no idea what else to do. Without the rigid structure and orders, they just... fall apart.

2) Is the girl who helped Sen in the beginning dead?

I'm pretty sure it's fairly obvious that the girl -Haruka- is dead, for those of you who've read this far already. Sorry for killing off another character so quickly. Rest assured that her little brother will be sticking around for awhile. :D

**IMPORTANT:** The next update may happen _sooner_ or _later_ depending on how much writing I can cram into the next week. I will be going to NY for spring break, so expect an update either late next week or sometime after the 20th. I'm sure that we all hope I can get some serious writing done before I go off to NY. xD

Thank you very much to everyone who supported this story. ^^ Feedback and critique is much appreciated!

-XxZuiliu


	6. VI

_What is strength?_

_In this world, the only thing that matters is strength. In this world, the only nonverbal language that's universally spoken is written in the art of killing. In this world, the only path of authority that's acknowledged by everyone is paved through blood and power._

_(In this world, it's kill or be killed, for there is no one you can rely upon but yourself.)_

_... Those were the unspoken laws of this day and age, this eternity of chaotic warfare. Those were the unspoken rules that I'd been introduced to -that we'd all been introduced to- and were now intimately acquainted with._

_But _her._ She _defied_ these rules._

_True, she wasn't invincible, but she didn't lust for blood, either. Nor did she foolishly crave dominance over the rest of us, over the rest of the children, like how some bold-minded ones had tried to do in the beginning -the simple-minded ones who had attempted to pick up the mantle of leadership before they'd been ruthlessly put down by the Masters. But she was strong, of that there was no doubt... and yet, she never fought and killed so blindly and selfishly, not like..._

_(Not like the rest of us fearful, spineless cowards.)_

_No. _

_It wasn't just that._

_What made her so _inspiring_ was that she _protected.

_... It didn't just extend to me, where it became unofficially acknowledged amongst our numbers that she'd taken the youngest little child under her wing. Because sometimes, after the training sessions had ended, she would offer a scrap or two of clean cloth for other children to bandage their wounds with. Occasionally, she would even give a tip or two to others on their combat techniques._

_(Strange how I'd never wondered even once why it was that she seemed to _fit_ right into the role of a ninja, how I'd always so thoughtlessly assumed that it was merely because she'd been living under the rule of the Amagasa Clan for a long, long time...)_

_She was strong. But in a world where strength was everything, where anything could be gained through strength, she chose to _protect.

_(Truth be told, it was just as mind-boggling as it was awe-inspiring.)_

_... So it rankled me. It irked me. It downright_ disturbed _me, how _willing _those other children were to turn on her after everything she did for them, after she used her strength for them, the very moment that they saw that she was, for once, _vulnerable_. How they were oh so _ready _to raise their hands against her the very instant her strength faltered. _

_(... Yes, yes, we had long lost the right to even _mention_ such fickle things like honor and gratitude, concepts such as debt and repayment... but that's not the point, not really. Had our sense of _morality_ really sunk so far as well?)_

_... _

"_That... was kinda brutal of you there."_

_I wiped my hands on the sides of the too-large Amagasa Clan shirt swamping my skeletal, diminutive frame, focusing my gaze onto a pair of sapphire eyes rather than letting it linger on the small bloody handprints trailing over the coarse fabric._

"_They were going to kill you," I stated matter-of-factly, refusing to let my voice waver no matter how badly my arms tried to shake, no matter how badly body wanted to tremble, no matter how badly my stomach churned after that vivid haze of scarlet mist had faded from my eyes when I saw them creep up behind her, pulling out a knife on her and-_

_(__**RED.**__)_

_-no. No. Don't think about it right now, _don't, _otherwise you'll lose your composure for sure. Control yourself. Breathe. In, out, in, out. Repeat. You have to remain stoic. Calm. Unmoving. You can't afford to broadcast a sign of weakness right after proving your -_our_- strength here. What will these rabid wolves think if you collapse to your knees now? What will be stopping them from restraining themselves then? What will be preventing them from using their superior numbers to their _advantage_ to overwhelm your pitiful defense and kill_ _her... and you as well?_

_I squared my shoulders and lifted my gaze, sharpening them into the hard look that I'd seen on _her_ face so many times before. It wasn't a silent message issuing a challenge to the others, but a resolute _promise_ that _nothing_ would be able to get past me._

_(Still, it wasn't quite the same. _She_ had always been able to back this up with her actions -was there any guarantee that I'd be able to do it, too?)_

_I exhaled lowly._

_This was no time for self-doubts and second guesses. You can't show any weaknesses anymore. _

_You can't. _

_You can't you can't you __**can't**__._

_... _

_... Because, in this world, strength -and even the mere _illusion_ of strength- is absolutely _crucial_ to survival._

* * *

_One, two, three._

My body dropped into a quick roll before I swiftly sprang upwards, eyes deftly flickering over and taking in my current surroundings as I whirled around, tiny fists firmly implanting themselves into a startled boy's ribs. There was that familiar sensation of brittle bones snapping under the brute force of my chakra-enhanced knuckles, that familiar screech of agonizing pain tearing itself from another child's ragged throat -and I quickly crushed any sympathetic feelings of pity that these achingly familiar, _normal_ occurrences might stir somewhere deep within my hollow heart.

I kicked away the limp body, jumping backwards as I did so. It was only second nature to send a kunai after their throat to finish the job

(A knife to the general chest area, while bloody, was often imprecise. It wasn't always lethal, which could be problematic afterwards -better suited for interrogation and torture than for field battle. On the other hand, have you ever seen someone getting back up with a kunai skewering through their neck?)

I used my momentum to fold my body into a low flip, and landed in a small crouch. A tiny flick of the wrist, and my kunai came flying back to me, covered in warm blood and little bits of flesh, some of which came off on my hand as I gripped the knife again. The ninja wire attached to the kunai returned to its circled position around my forearm as I returned the kunai into its tattered pouch.

(There was a _reason_ why I never liked using stone weapons much, mainly due to their gritty, rocky surfaces... but then again, beggars can't be choosers.)

I hovered in that spot for a second, maybe two, before darting away into the midst of battle again, just as a storm of shurikens peppered my abandoned position.

_Free-for-all._

It wasn't like a full-fledged ninja battle on the warfield, as no one here was quite as dangerous or as skilled as most of the enemies we encountered under the banner of the Amagasa Clan... but that didn't make these wild altercations with each other any less deadly.

... The concepts behind a "free-for-all" were simple. Every man for himself. Every person an enemy. In this relentless maelstrom of absolute chaos, only the strong will be able to fight and survive. Here, you can't depend on anyone but yourself -and in this battle for your own _survival_, who _cares?_ Everyone will be busy looking out for themselves, who _cares_ if you'll survive or not?

(Once upon a time this wasn't true... _she_ cared, and I wasn't alone. _Never_ alone. We stood back to back together in a sea of blood.)

... So chin up and concentrate on all the other children around you now -and remind yourself that they aren't _children_ anymore, that they haven't been children for a long, long time... and will never be children again. In these deceptively young bodies reside terrible monsters, for only _monsters_ will endlessly seek nothing but blood and death and blood and death until everything turns **red.**

(... Sometimes I pause and wonder if that definition makes me a monster, too. Or perhaps I already _am_, and I'm only denying this fact for the sake of preserving whatever remains of my own conscience. Or maybe I'm just insane enough by now to be playing mind games on myself in these bloody days.)

Except it wasn't. Not really. We weren't _all_ monsters. I mean, there was one child here -one child who I knew for _certain_- who _wasn't_ a monster like the rest of us.

(_She_ hadn't been, either, but she isn't here anymore.)

_Uzumaki Naoki. _

_That little new boy, the younger brother to Haruka. _Uzumaki_ Haruka._

...

A sharp thump in the ashen heart, a sudden spike in the empty pulse.

...

"_I'm gonna bash yer head in the next time trainin' comes around, too. Jus' like how Haruka got hers crushed when-"_

_... _

When _what?_

_When she tried to pull another idiotic stunt, one that she hadn't been able to pull off this time. When she acted recklessly without thinking, charging in without a second thought. When she reacted on impulse, by sheer _will_._

... When she died_._ When she _died_, and all because I-

_She died all because of _you_, you _weakling_, you _coward_. You, who have no right to be even _breathing_ right now, much less be _standing_ here instead of rotting away in your own grave. Your time is already done and _over _with, scum. So why don't you hurry up and die already? Why don't you just roll over and _die_ before you destroy any more lives, all for the sake of your own selfish desire to live?_

That's right... That's _right._ I'm not... I shouldn't be... I... I'm...

_What've you been doing all this time?_

... I'm _dead_. Dead dead dead dead _dead._ Nothing can and would ever change this fact, this harsh, unyielding _truth_ -not even this distorted reality of moving around in a corporeal body made of flesh and bone, a body blessed with a functional heart beating in blood. I'm scared. I'm _scared. _Scared, terrified, and oh so very _fearful_ of experiencing death -_true_ death, not that mimicry of floating in darkness before being jarred awake as an infant in _someone else's _body, as a human in a _world_ that wasn't mine.

What's the use in trying to be strong? _I'm scared._ I've been scared all this time, and still _am_, even at this very moment -while I dance under a rain of knives and blood. I'm scared -scared, scared, _scared _of dying- and so I desperately cling to this life that I don't even _deserve_, because I'm such a pathetic-

_Coward._

... Yes. I am.

_You should be dead._

...

Yeah.

I know.

...

"**Get ready to die like that pathetic sister o' yours, kid!"**

...

The words were distant, blurred, and were barely even able to pierce through the thick fog shrouding my delirious mind, but as soon as that sentence registered in my mind, when my eyes caught sight of that tall boy bearing down on the fire-haired Uzumaki, the entire _world_ turned-

_**Red.**_

* * *

"... Hideki."

"Yo. 'Sup, Mamoru?"

"..."

"Well? Ya got somethin' ta say, spit it out. I ain't got all day ta listen to your silence, y'know."

"... I..."

"... Huh. So, finally ready ta apologize ta little ol' me after seein' the error of your ways?"

"..."

"Yeah, thought so... Apology accepted, you're forgiven, yadda yadda ya... oi, where're you goin'? Well, since you so very _kindly_ apologized to me an' all, be a good sport an' c'mere an' sit with your ol' buddy while he's supervising these kids, will ya?"

"_... _If this has anything to do with-"

"Chillax. _I_ ain't gonna make ya adopt a kid if you're ready ta try an' kill yourself over- huh, will ya look at _that_. Seems like on o' the brats just went completely berserk. Wonder what made this one finally snap."

* * *

No. No no no no _no._

Not him. _Not him, you bastard!_

Chakra _frothedragedroared_ in my veins, and there was this peculiar pounding in my ears that blocked out every other sound, this strange tingle on my skin that drowned out every other sensation, and I experienced something eerily similar to tunnel vision, except it was more of this-

_Anger. Savage, cruel, and unrelenting. The _desire _to cause _pain_, on an escalated level that's entirely different from anything that you've ever experienced before, this sudden _whirlpool _of malice in your soul so intense that it frightens you_, _except you somehow can't even find yourself to care about it at the moment, _won't _care about it, because you mind is elsewhere as you disregard your own self-_

Naoki. He's not ready for this type of fighting!

_... His sister died for _you.

Naoki... He's not a monster, not like the rest of us, _never_ like the rest of us, just like _her_, just like Haruka-

_But you're a _coward_, "Sen." Your strength is only superficial, is it not? Oh, if only they could see how fragile you really are inside that hollow husk you call your living body of flesh and bone... How long would you last in battle, then?_

_So really, why do you even care? Saving little Naoki could kill you, you _know_ how strong the other boy is... you _know_ that he wasn't joking when he claimed he'd "bash your head in," you _know _he has the strength to do that. You _know_ how he only left you alone before only because you had Haruka to protect you... but she's not here anymore, is she? She'll _never_ be here anymore, because you just as good as _killed_ her with your own hands._

_These bloody hands that can only belong to a _monster.

_... So why don't you run? Why don't you just _run_ like what your pathetic survival instincts are screaming at you to do now, _coward?

No.

No no no no _no._

I'm not letting it happen again, right before my very eyes. Not again, not again, not again, _never_ again.

I don't know him. I don't know Naoki. But I know Haruka -and I know what she would do if she were standing here today in my place, like she _should_ be.

(And how I _shouldn't_.)

_... You're too far away. Just like last time. You won't make it in time, and you _know _it._

Too close, too close, too close. The tall boy was closing in on Naoki so _rapidly_ -his hands were practically _radiating_ chakra as they reached out to grip his neck and crush his skull- and those blood-crusted claws of his were ready to kill the little boy in a moment, and despite all this I still couldn't- couldn't- _couldn't-_

There was a maniacal laugh that rang through the air as the boy's fingers _tightened_, and suddenly -_sweet kami, why is there so much blood?_

The world slowed down.

I _screamed_.

... And my tumultuous, volatile chakra exploded everywhere as the earth beneath me _moved_ to my will.

* * *

_You're a coward. There's no denying that fact. You fear, thus you fight... seeking strength in order to survive and escape the jaws of death. After all, you would know better than anyone else that innate human aversion to death._

_But sometimes... even cowards will cast away their fears. The strength that humans discover when they find something to fight for is incredible, even when they themselves don't quite realize just what it is that they're really fighting for at the moment. The strength that they wield when they finally stop running and _stand.

...

_(After all, if even _you_ won't fight for what you believe in... then who_ will?_)_

* * *

"Whoa. Haven't seen somethin' like this in a long time."

"..."

"... So whaddya make of this, Mamo- Mamoru? Mamoru! Oi, where d'ya think you're going? Are ya seriously jus' gonna waltz onto that deathfield- _Mamoru!_ Dammit, at least wait for me to finish my _sentence_, ya thick-headed numbskull! Mamoru!"

* * *

My body was on fire.

Everything _burned_. My limbs had been converted to lead and were now being melted in a blazing bonfire, and someone had turned my blood into lighter fluid before deciding to toss a few sparks in. It wasn't just embers that were smoldering inside me anymore, merely pulsing with a slow, steady warmth -the flames had become a raging inferno, a hellish inferno that I couldn't _stop_, an inferno that was _swallowing me whole_. It was so very _painful_, and for a crazy, absurd moment, even _death_ seemed like such a beautiful invitation because-

_Chakra._

Chakra, the lifeforce of everything in this world. My _chakra_ was _gone_, it was-

_Still there. But faint. So very, very _faint.

It hurts.

_... But I suppose it's your victory this time around. Now you'll remember that everything comes with a cost, no?_

The Amagasa ninjas had chosen a swampy terrain for the "free-for-all" this time, because of the disastrous results of the last battle in the marshland. What used to be soft mud had hardened and _spiked_ upwards, and the ground didn't even really look like a swamp anymore, because-

_Red is such a nice color, is it not? Look at this carefully, girl. _Look_, and _remember._ See those earth spikes jutting out everywhere in this field? This is _your_ doing. Never forget those glazed looks in these children's dying eyes -how death is swift and unexpected in this world, and can happen any moment, anywhere, to _anyone.

_Look. Look, and remember._

_This is what you've done. So how does it feel?_

**Red.**

Absolute carnage. Spikes of hardened mud were protruding everywhere from the ground, coated in a thick layer of crimson blood from the little bodies that were impaled upon them. Some children had managed to evade them, but none had emerged unscathed -and everywhere I looked, there was nothing but-

**Red.**

...

Naoki. Where's...? Ah. There he is. The tall boy -taken three feet off the ground by the earth spike that burst from the ground in front of him, body limp and lifeless. He'd died instantly... which was more than could be said for many of the others, judging by the pained sounds of suffering surrounding me. And Naoki... yes, he was still there. Bleeding. Bruised. Beaten and battered, but-

_Alive._

... When had been the last time I'd felt _relief_ like this? Like a set of weights had been taken off of my chest and I could _breathe_ properly again, despite this burning pain coursing through my veins?

"You're an idiot, girl."

I tore my eyes away from the little Uzumaki boy. Naoki is fine. But for a moment, my heart stilled as my gray eyes met the stormy gaze of the Amagasa man's unreadable gold eyes as he stood over me. There was no way I could force my body to get up now -my body _wouldn't_ move anymore -and, in all honesty, I didn't even know if I _could_ move anymore-

"What possessed you to do something like this for that little boy there?"

... He'd caught me searching for Naoki, hadn't he? But then, if that was the case... _why?_ Why was he even bothering to ask me? It didn't make sense, this _situation_ didn't make sense -the Amagasa ninjas who overlooked our training had _never_ interacted with any of the children on a level like this, never like-

"You could've died."

-never like they _cared_. I don't think he did -not really- at least, not about _me_, at the very least, but perhaps... my reason? My motives? He knows, though. He _knows_ it was for Naoki -even if he doesn't know about Haruka, how I killed her, how I-

_He knows. But what he doesn't know is _why.

Why.

_..._

Because I owe it to Haruka to protect her brother in her stead. Because he's the only one who isn't ruled by blood and death like the rest of us. Because I'm better off dead, but I'm too much of a coward to die.

_Because you realized that there's a better use for your strength than being a monster._

* * *

.

...

.

Author's Notes:

Yay, update right on the 20th! :D

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for their kind support for _Senkei_. :) As of the last chapter, we've officially broken 100 reviews. A very big thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alerted! I actually wanted to write a special piece to celebrate this occasion, but I don't think I'll be able to find the time for it anytime soon -which means it goes onto the shelf to gather dust until I can finish it.

This chapter hopefully brings out some more of the instability/turmoil Sen is experiencing -I used two types of writing for Sen's inner thoughts to try and highlight this aspect, but I think it might've turned out to be a little confusing instead. Sorry. Suggestions on how to improve this would be very much appreciated.

Naoki doesn't get much "screen time" in this chapter, unfortunately. There'll be a lot more interaction between him and Sen in the next chapter -most likely, I think- so at least that'll be something for everyone to look forward to, I guess. :D

Once again, hooray for reaching 100! I never actually thought I'd make 100 reviews, honestly speaking, so I'm very touched by the support everyone is showing. Thank you all very much! :D Hope you'll continue your support for _Senkei!_

-XxZuiliu


	7. VII

_This is crazy. _

_These ninjas... are they even human? _

_I _know_ that humans don't lap up the blood of their kills like some savage animal. Humans don't butcher everything in their path like some deranged predator. Humans don't just _laugh_ when they receive a knife through the head and _liquify into a puddle of water on the ground.

_(But then again, perhaps they _are_ human... if nothing else, then simply because of the fact that they were still vulnerable to death. It's a fact that humans are mortal, and sometimes that's the only fact that allows us to fall asleep at night. Ninja clans with tricky bloodlines are always more difficult to kill. Difficult and harder than usual, yes, but not quite impossible. After all, they were still human, and humans are mortal...)_

_The familiar crackle of lightning was the only sign I received before several pain-filled screams of the enemy shinobi (humans, humans, _humans_) lanced through the air. _

_I tossed a quick glance over my shoulder towards the tall auburn-haired girl behind me. Haruka was grimacing when she raised a twitching hand from the waters of the icy river, before her eyes suddenly widened in my direction. I was spinning around before her cries had even finished piercing through the air, no hesitation in any of my movements when I moved to deflecting the hail of kunais raining down on us. _

_It became difficult to hold our position, especially when the metallic storm of knives were joined by a water bullet jutsu. Hastily yanking up a shakily-formed earth wall in front of us, I inwardly grimaced as it fell apart under three quick assaults. Foregoing an offensive strategy in the slight lull that came after, I instead used the opportunity to force my chakra into the ground and pulled up another earth wall, this one in a circular form surrounding the two of us. _

_I patiently waited for Haruka to regain control over her spasming body, weathering the attacks as best as I could. Remaining stationary for an extended period of time on defense wasn't my forte, but there was nothing I could do short of abandoning Haruka, which I'd never, _never_ do._

…

_Time is precious, particularly in the midst of battle._

_I don't remember the details of that day. My memories become blurry whenever I try to recall the exact events -perhaps it was the shock, and my mind decided to block out the painful moments that had followed. But even though I don't remember everything, even though I don't know how it all went so wrong so quickly... I know with perfect clarity that it was _all my fault.

_My jutsu hadn't been strong enough. The second earth wall collapsed as it was hit with a barrage of water jutsus and weaponry, and before I knew it there was a cloud of dirt in my eyes and mud sticking to my body, slowing down my movements._

_My reactions hadn't been fast enough. An bloodthirsty enemy shinobi had attacked us immediately with an insane leer on his face and a cruel glint in his eyes as soon as we emerged from the jutsu-caused mudslide, and all I was aware of in the next second was that my ribs _hurt.

_In that single moment of weakness, the little girl who'd been trained to fight and kill was replaced by the old coward that lived within her. Replaced by the old coward who could -no, _would- _do nothing but watch as the viciously cackling ninja's arm turned into water, twisting upwards into the form of a monstrous claw above her. There was a look of unrestrained madness and ecstasy splattered over his face, and the coward who had pretended to be strong remembered the feeling of absolute helplessness and sheer horror._

"_MOVE!"_

_Haruka. Brave, strong, beautiful._

_Another wave of pain lanced through my body as I was roughly kicked to the side by a crimson blur -blood trickled from my mouth, but that was hardly my concern at the moment. Nothing was, nothing other than-_

"_Haruka!" Her name tore itself from my raspy throat in a warbled cry, high-pitched from panic alone._

_(If only I'd been stronger, strong enough to _protect, _strong enough to protect her...)_

_The claw slammed into her, pinning her into the ground. Blood filled the air in a fine red mist, and I could only look upon the gruesome sight helplessly. A slow smile spread itself over the ninja's face as he advanced on her, his other arm melting into water and twisting into the mutated form of a monster's claw._

_Bile rose in my throat when I realized what he was about to do._

_No. Thiscan'tbehappeningitcan'titcan'titcan'tbe-_

"_HARUKA!"_

_She smiled._

_..._

_Then the monster's claw clamped down around head and _squeezed,_ and I could only _scream_, because the entire world was bleeding into this vividly, morbidly crimson-_

_**RED.**_

_Red. So much red that it made me feel rotten and sick to my very core, yet so very empty and hollow at the same time. Red. Blood is always red. Even when diluted by water, dancing within such a deceptively pure liquid, gracefully twirling in a hundred strands of elegant scarlet ribbons_-

…

_Nothing can -and would ever be able to- change the fact that blood is so very, very _red.

* * *

Sunlight.

It was such a rarity during the rainy seasons that its occasional presence during these times had the added effect of soothing the irritable tempers of many. I'm sure you know who I'm referring to with "many" -really, who else would I be talking about?

Come to think of it, the Amagasa ninjas were rather tense these days. Oh, they were good at hiding it -good at pretending that there was nothing wrong- but there were little things. Little traces, little actions, little differences from their usual behaviors. You don't live with the same people for _years_ and not pick up on some of the finer details. There was no doubt that something big was brewing in the air -and I could only pray that it wouldn't bode ill for us.

(Taking things into consideration, it would most likely turn out to be the exact opposite...)

I shook my head, wringing out the excess water clinging to the damp shirt in my hands, and passed it on to Naoki, who was waiting by the clothesline.

"What's wrong?"

I experienced a brief surge of déjà vu. The boy's question was a bizarre echo of the very same inquiry that he had made of me the first time we met by the stream. It was a question that I had brushed off and ignored at the moment, one that I'd never really answered...

"... It's nothing."

My voice was soft, quiet, hardly above a whisper and barely even audible. But somehow, the perceptive little boy ended up hearing it anyways.

"Liar," the redheaded boy puffed his cheeks at me, and I sighed -partly from exasperation and partly from resignation. Haruka had been perceptive, too. She'd always known whenever I'd skirted around the truth... Although, Naoki was a tad different from his sister in his aspect. Whereas Haruka could stir changes in another's emotions -whether it be through helping them, encouraging them, inspiring them, or a convoluted mixture of all three- Naoki was more _sensitive. _He was empathetic of what others felt, able to read their emotions simply from a combination of subconscious observations and astute intuition.

(I'd seen him take advantage of this useful little trait on multiple occasions during the times when he'd interacted with the adults of the Amagasa Clan. The housewives were now all of the opinion that he was a sweet, sympathetic, darling little creature.)

I sighed again.

"Don't get all worked up, Naoki, I'm just... just worrying. It's not anything that we can work to do something about, anyways." That would be the most I'd elaborate on this matter for him -there was really no need to explain to him the tense air that had fallen over the Amagasa Clan and put him on edge with me. Right?

Catching on to my thoughts, Naoki gave me a small scowl as he snatched the next soggy article of clothing from my fingers.

"Why won't you ever tell me anything?" He grumbled under his breath, and I felt something in my chest constrict _hard_ for a moment as those words left his mouth.

_Because I don't want you to get hurt. Why else?_

"... Sorry." The apology fell from my lips without a second thought, but the little boy didn't seem to notice. If he did, he made no response of it.

We lapsed into silence. Seconds quietly ticked by into minutes as we worked together on the laundry.

_How do you try to tell someone that you're only trying to look out for them?_

Sometimes, I wondered if my deliberate lack of interaction with other children marked me as socially inept. I certainly hoped not -I used to never have trouble striking up conversations with other people in my past life- though current evidence appeared to be pointing to the contrary, as I continually failed to find the right words to say to him in an effort to break the awkward silence that'd settled between us.

_What good would it do you to know that the Amagasa Clan is growing restless, Naoki? What good would it do you to worry and be unable to do anything about it? Better that you remain unaware of it and be able to focus on your training, on your tasks at hand..._

Perhaps it was because our first few encounters with each other had always been me rushing headlong into danger to save him that had resulted in this instinct that told me I had to _protect_ Naoki. Perhaps it was because Naoki was quickly growing stronger under the harsh discipline of the Amagasa Clan that he felt that he didn't need my _help_ anymore -that we could stand on equal ground with each other now, that he didn't need to be patronized and taken care of all the time.

Absorbed in my thoughts, it was a while before I noticed it -before I noticed that there was chakra humming in the air again.

To be sure, it wasn't quite the same as those violent, agitated waves drowning everything in its path. Not quite the force that weighed down oppressively on your body, pinning you to the ground. This ambient chakra was more of a lulling, gentle calm that whispered quiet soothings into your ear. The way it washed over you made you want to close your eyes and take a nap, lying down under the warm afternoon sun...

It was tempting. It was oh so very _tempting_ to just let those tendrils of foreign chakra take root in my body. They promised to show me the peace and tranquility that could never be found in this world, offered me idyllic serenity and sweet escape from this everyday hell.

...

Paranoia stirred the first inklings of _wrongness_ in my mind.

"'M sleepy..."

I cast a quick glance towards the groggy little boy on my left, who yawned and tiredly rubbed at his watering eyes. The wet cloths in his hands were momentarily forgotten as they fell back into the sudsy waters with a heavy splash, and grimy water was sent flying everywhere. I blinked in surprise as some of it splashed onto my skin. It was strange. The stinging, prickly sensation of water droplets that would usually deliver an icy jolt to my system were naught but a mere tingle on my skin right now...

I frowned lightly, the corners of my lips twitching downwards.

(Something was definitely _off _about this. But what, exactly...?)

My gaze snapped back to Naoki as he let out an even bigger yawn than before. Leaning back against the wall, the boy curled in on himself as his eyes drooped, muttering incoherent words about leaving the laundry later.

With a sudden start, I realized that I was _mimicking his moves_.

It was _disturbing_, to say the least. Disturbing, and _frightening_. My body was becoming numb and lethargic at a rapid rate, and now that I was (somehow) aware of it, sleep was looking to be a welcome option, too. Even though my mind was telling me that this was _wrong_, that I _shouldn't_ be getting all sleepy and groggy in the middle of the day -it was almost as if someone had taken a heavy blanket and draped it over my thinking process and I couldn't quite decide what to do. Perhaps everything would feel better after a nap...?

(Yes, a nap sounded really good right around now. But despite how comforting and inviting an option it seemed, how wonderful it _felt_ to be, there was this panicked insistence lingering at the back of my mind telling me that this was all so, so _wrong_-)

Something _clicked_ in my mind when tiny pinpricks of chakra appeared on the edge of my senses moments before my consciousness drifted into darkness, and my eyes snapped open.

This feeling. This sensation. How it felt so tempting and real and yet remained so _wrong_ at the same time. There was only one explanation for it -how could it be anything else _but_-

"Genjutsu," I breathed, tongue feeling thick in my mouth -and I brought up my numb hands into a single seal.

It took me a split second to fumble for any degree control over my unnatural chakra flow -idiot idiot _idiot_, how could I _not_ have noticed this earlier when I was so sensitive to chakra?- and I briefly expelled the small pulse of chakra I'd gathered to terminate the genjutsu's influence.

I blinked.

And then I was flying. Or rather, to be more precise, I was _sent_ flying -courtesy of a heavy kick to my stomach that propelled me bodily into the air.

Then there was no time to think. The enemy was on me before I even landed, and it was a testament to the aerial maneuvers that we'd learned when I evaded the swift jabs and punches. My body was malnourished and light enough -in all honesty, I didn't think I'd hold up under another kick like that. There was a _reason_ why I focused on speed rather than strength, why Haruka had taught me taijutsu techniques which emphasized diverting an opponent's strength and using it against them.

My hand darted out, fingers closing around the wrist of an incoming fist as I followed its momentum and yanked it forwards towards me. Twisting aside my body at the last possible moment, I followed through with the movement and _pushed_, slamming the other ninja into the ground. The stinging pain I'd come to associate with shurikens blossomed in my arm as soon as I straightened, and I immediately spun around.

Judging by its trajectory -and the additional presence of more "chakra dots" on my radar- there was _definitely_ more than one enemy.

_Come to think of it, how had they even managed to get so far into the Clan compound undetected?_

My mind went blank as a hand closed around my throat.

"Shitty little brat, what did you _do_ to him-"

I could think of a dozen ways to break his wrist in the same instant that I was raised into the air and dangled in his tight grip. I could strike his wrist or hit a pressure point that would automatically have him releasing his hold on me, but my body wasn't _responding_. No matter how hard I struggled, trying to _move_, my body remained completely unresponsive to the frantic orders of my mind. My lungs were burning now –my body slowly sagging and going limp as I lost strength, even though my mind kicked into overdrive from sheer _panic_ as the horror of what would happen finally settled in-

"_Let go of her!"_

-and suddenly, those black spots dancing around in my field of vision disappeared, and the intense pressure on my throat vanished. I collapsed onto the ground in a heap, sucking in great lungfuls of sweet, sweet_ air_.

_Don't stay here like some imbecile, girl. MOVE!_

I moved. Or rather, I _tried_ to, until my mind _finally_ registered what was wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

_Genjutsu. It's another genjutsu. _I realized with startling clarity. _How come I never noticed his chakra settling into my system?_

The thought was terrifying, and chilling to the bone. But battle was never the time to be overcome by fear. That would mean _death_.

"You alright?"

I glanced at the redheaded boy from the corner of my eye as he slipped next to me, panting lightly. Naoki. Just now when I was being strangled by that man, caught off guard when I'd been assaulted from behind while dealing with another enemy... he'd... he'd really...?

_I thought I had to be the one to protect you, Naoki... am I wrong to think this way? I know I'm far from invincible, that I'm _human_, but still..._

Naoki had been getting stronger. I knew that -we fought next to each other in training sessions, and I could steadily gauge his rapid improvement. But there'd always been a part of me that still regarded him as a _child_ in this world of blood. A part of me where the moments of saving him from certain death _months_ and _months_ ago had engraved itself into my memory.

It was _jarring_ to be saved by the little boy I'd sworn to myself to protect. No, he... he really wasn't so little anymore now, was he?

I almost laughed at the startling realization that I was still trying to come to terms with.

"C'mon," Naoki muttered lowly next to my ear, voice tense with concentration, and I felt his back press against mine in an echo of all the times I'd stood in battle with Haruka. "We can do this."

Two children, outnumbered and outmatched by five grown men, who were each accomplished ninjas in their own right -evidently, if they'd been able to easily slip into the Amagasa Clan without raising any alarms.

It wasn't the first time I'd had to face grim situations like this. It was just the first time with a different person.

I exhaled lightly.

We'd figure things out between us after this. For now, I needed to focus on- no, we. _We_. We had a battle to fight.

* * *

.

...

.

Author's Notes:

So. Anyone miss me? :D

There's a slight timeskip between chapters six and seven (which isn't very clear, I know), though that's not really important, I guess. Dunno when the next update will be up, but I shouldn't disappear again for two months without a word again. More child soldier life things will happen in the next few chapters, I think, and there should be further development in the relationship between Sen and Naoki next time.

"Polaris" has just been updated earlier today. I felt a little out of sorts while erasing/editing/finishing this chapter for "Senkei," though... sorry if it reflects in the writing here. I'd be much obliged if grammar mistakes and other errors would be brought to my attention ASAP!

Until next time (hopefully not too far off...),

-XxZuiliu


End file.
